wont turn around

(work in progress) Verse 1 Break by the shop with a smoke in the cold rain soaking my coat through. Grease in the cracked skin, black in the half-moons, hands still froze through. Forklift beeping behind me, bay door half open, light cutting the dark. Boys got a joke going somewhere up close, but I can’t make myself walk to it. Phone screen split through your face when it wakes up bright in my hand. Dropped it out in the lot last winter, still kept it, still use it. Still works if I angle it sideways, keep pressure on one side of the frame. Guess that’s how some things die—slow enough you live with it. Been replaying them clips where you talk like hurt had a use to it, dead-calm look like hurt quit leaving marks on you. Used to keep your words folded in my wallet behind my license. Print wore off. Now it’s soft white paper. Nothing inside it. My girl says when I put your tracks on, I change without moving. Kitchen light buzzing, sink running, cabinet closing. I’m by the speaker like the wall might answer first, like if it rattles the room enough, I might go with it. I ain’t saying you raised me. I’m saying some nights got so black your voice showed up before mine did. Yeah, I sent too much. Yeah, I heard myself saying it. But when your own head comes back through speakers, that ain’t music. Verse 2 Apartment half empty, stripped down, looking like somebody quit. She took the plant and the mugs, good charger, good towels, useful shit. Left my shirts in a pile by the rug like they belonged to a man she was done with. Place gets ugly when it’s empty—cheap blinds, water mark, dust in the corners. One fork, one plate by the sink. Baseboard heater making that dry little ticking sound in the wall, like something small still working, still trying not to quit. We had that quiet kind of fight, the kind where nobody gotta get louder because both people already know. She kept turning her ring with her thumb by the counter edge. Wouldn’t look straight at me when she said it: “You don’t want help. You want hurt till it turns into proof.” I said something cheap back. Quick and mean, just to damage the minute some more. Don’t remember the words, just her face right after. It landed wrong. She cried anyway. I stood there with my keys in my fist like leaving was somewhere I could drive to. There’s a tiny pink sock in the glove box. Never got rid of it. Couldn’t leave it in the apartment. Couldn’t keep seeing it either. So now it stays in the dark with receipts and the registration, and every time I reach for one thing, I find that instead— light in the hand, heavy everywhere else. Verse 3 Parked with the engine off, hood ticking while rain keeps hitting the windshield. Fan slowing down, red dash glow making the cab look half flooded. Had your name on the screen with my thumb over call, just watching it. Then laughed once low like what was that really gonna fix. Like another man’s voice through a speaker could reach through static and set a life straight. Like one right line at the right second could make a bad year heel. Never pulled nothing straight. Just made the silence smaller. Help don’t hit like that. My girl called seven times. Then stopped. That felt worse. A ring means somebody’s still trying. Silence means they sat down with it. Silence means they know you’re choosing distance and can’t pull you back through it. I kept thinking about the sink back home. Hair tie on the faucet. One chair crooked. Shopping list on the fridge in black marker: coffee, dish soap, eggs. Just regular life. That was the part that hit— how normal everything looked next to what I was turning into. I’m not putting that on you. I know what’s mine. I’m saying I wore your voice for years when mine felt thin and hard to trust. But a borrowed voice don’t hold a wheel straight. Don’t get a man back through rain. Don’t make him go home once he’s started leaning away.