He’s practically ancient. The only one I’ve known to recite lines and lines and lines, all memorized. Putting my lame typed letters to shame. The isolation they feel, alone on a page. Most likely to be thrown away. Sometimes transcribed, like these——made 3D——more space junk transmit from a screen. Regardless, I write. Trace something dark across the light. He wants me to read him something I wrote, but I write for no one. I write so as not to speak. Not to breathe into language, but to let my thoughts leak symbols and die in ink. It’s calming, I write myself into a trance. I don’t need, I don’t seek, I don’t reach for anything beyond these keys, what’s right in front of me. But my continuum, these lines, still somehow stretch beyond me. Right now, nothing more, see, not even the errors matter, but before him, even on the phone, if I tried to speak into these words, I’d tremble, over-correct a self-imposed mess with excess. Apologies. With this, none of that. See, what I write is just for that, to make space. Besides, why would anyone want to hear all these voices? I write to prevent. He won’t hear a flow of consonance, just persistent clicking. I like the way it sounds, the typing alone. And as long as he’s reading me, we’ll never be together.