Forty minutes, give or take

You said you'd write in the morning. I woke up at five and lay in the dark for forty minutes telling myself I was not waiting. I was just awake. Awake is a thing a person can be at five in the morning without it meaning anything. I almost convinced myself.

When the message came I let it sit on the lock screen for a count of ten. I had read it, of course. I had read it the second the screen lit up. The count of ten was a small theatrical gesture for an audience of nobody. I am the audience of nobody. I have been performing for that audience for years.