Every Cliché but the Last

Let's stage every cliché the movies ever gave us: the diner booth, the rain-streaked window, the mixtape nobody asked for.

Rain hits the windshield like it's rehearsing an apology it'll never actually deliver.

Reruns of us, running on a loop nobody paid for, still get better ratings than the real thing.

Gum-stuck bleachers, ticket stubs, a marquee that spells our names wrong, we've done this a hundred times.

Somebody always yells cut before the hard part.

Trains still pull away in slow motion, because apparently that's the only speed grief knows how to leave at.

The projector hums, the reel spools on, and nobody in this theatre has ever once asked to see the ending.

Gone is a word we've rehearsed so many times it doesn't scare us anymore; it just sounds like weather.

Right on cue, the windows fog up, somebody lights a cigarette they don't even want, and the credits almost roll.

Love, if that's even the word for it, keeps finding new ways to almost end.

Death gets cut every single time, spliced out before anyone notices, and honestly, we're grateful.

Loyal isn't quite right, either, but it'll do until the credits finally roll.