I hear one honest sentence at the empty rehearsal studio. I cannot return to someone else receiving the version I built unchanged.

I enter the empty rehearsal studio and my body recognizes you first.

I breathe in resin and sweat in the air and lose the sentence I practiced.

I watch you hold a satin ribbon from the life we almost kept.

I know this meeting matters because I need my labor to stop looking like their luck.

I let it happen when the music starts with the dance you promised me.

I say your name and watch your shoulders soften.

I notice your answer arrive in your hands before your mouth.

I remember how quietly you once learned my body.

I feel warmth become evidence without becoming an answer.

I name someone else receiving the version I built before hope can rename it.

I hear you begin with my favorite version of my name.

I let a satin ribbon hold the warmth I cannot.

I let your explanation finish without rescuing it.

I finally hear that you give them the patience I taught you.

I keep my face still while my chest loses its balance.

I reach the mirrored corridor before my composure does.

I stop when you say there is one truth left.

I face you with only one handspan between us.

I wait for the sentence that could change the meaning of tonight.

I reach for you inside the empty rehearsal studio, but you give them the patience I taught you.