We keep a pact written in small hands,
signed on a night neither of us remembers.
You watch one horizon, I the other,
the boundary thin as breath.
Clock hands click trip wires.
Meetings, departures,
polite nods, gate open, gate shut.
Anger waits in my pocket,
a flare I refuse to strike.
Some evenings I smell the sulfur,
see a sudden glow swallow your outline,
then I let the vision cool
and count the cost in silence.
Until the ink fades,
I clip words, swallow sparks,
call restraint its own reward.
