shot glass
title
"... brevity is the soul of wit ..."
- William Shakespeare


Dameion Wagner


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Nighttime Routine

I somehow don't have a word or
words to say what I just could not
say at any point even when I
whispered "I love you" and "goodnight"
and I called your name up and down
and up the stairs again and once more
because I felt lucky, I felt like you might
just hear me through your exhale of
cigarette smoke. I wondered, often, as
a child, if your breath would smell sweeter
had you been a little kinder or had smoked
a little less. But I learned that kindness is
neither inhaled or exhaled: it was in the lightness of
your hand on my shoulder and the circles
it made on my troubled belly.