There were things hiding inside of her I wasn’t equipped to see and this collapse ripped her open to me. I searched her cavities for symbols that would betray her true nature, but found nothing I could read, just a vast absence containing her poverty of morals. I should’ve known, the need for my presence in her life was never love, only a sluice of goodness she would let flood the gulley of her body when she needed to appear human.

I wake up and look at that bridge, try to count the red taillights I see heading east every morning, a kind of rosary as I pray for another crisis to dwarf the one defining us right now.