Waiting.

When you're waiting for someone,
you make friends with the phone cord,
wrapping it around your hand
and watching it strangle the color from it.
When you're waiting,
you re-arrange the paper clips
and re-position the pillows
and fix the pictures on the wall
and pass your reflection too many times to keep count,
willing yourself not to look.
When you're waiting,
you play games with yourself,
test your self control
and your personal boundaries.
Waiting games like counting the
number of Johnsons in the phone book
or recalling each of your childhood toys in order
overtake your mind, but can't keep the clock
from going any slower, or moving any faster.
Blankets are re-folded,
socks re-matched,
holes re-sewn
as an unrepairable one grows larger.
When you're waiting for someone,
you realize how 10:29 is just a little bit later
than yesterday,
and how the truth he tells you
isn't true.
You realize that his shirt's mis-buttoned,
that he won't look you in the eye,
that he's wearing two socks,
but one clearly isn't his.
He's got a smudge of something
on his neck, and you realize that
you don't wear that shade,
and that he doesn't notice
the half-burned candles
amid the cold dinner prepared
nearly two hours prior.
There aren't excuses of work or friends,
no murmurs of extra projects or a night out with the guys
as he kicks off his shoes and heads straight to bed,
not even bothering to change.
You catch the scent that follows,
a fruity cloud of deceit
blending with the sweat of lies.
And then you realize
that when you wait for someone,
they don't come back.