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Then it came to me, my life. I remembered my life
the way an ax handle, mid-swing, remembers the tree.
— Ocean Vuong
The old Academy chair hurts Obito’s back. It’s too small, built for a child, not a middle-aged, semi-reformed war criminal. He drums his fingers on the desk, scraping his pencil over the letters carved in the wood. Minato’s up front droning on and on about the precious shinobi code, and Rin’s studiously taking notes, pencil flying over her notebook. It’s the peak of summer, so the cicadas’ chirps outside are crescendoing into a steady hum. The balmy heat of the classroom draws more sweat to his brow, and he’s halfheartedly formulating a plan to steal Rin’s notes when he hears the thud.
There’s a little bird crumpled on the windowsill beside him, one wing curled awkwardly beneath its body. It’s clearly just flown into the glass, and as he watches, it gathers itself slowly, each limb twitching before it stumbles to its feet. With a shake of its wings, it leaps off the ledge, arcing out of sight. He shrugs and turns back to the front, scratching another character into his desk when he hears another thud, much closer. This time, the bird’s slammed into the glass right next to his head. It leaves a stray feather behind, quill crooked and a little bloodied. To his horror, he watches as it soars off the windowsill, banks sharply, and collides with the window again.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Again and again, wings flung up, out, back. Smears of blood, beak clacking. Thump. Thump. He looks around the classroom in desperation, but Minato’s still lecturing, and Rin’s still writing. He’s the only one who seems to notice the bird’s perilous flight, but when he opens his mouth to speak, nothing comes out. On closer inspection, he realizes that Minato’s just drawing a large circle on the blackboard, chalk spiraling around and around. He turns to Rin, and she’s writing her name over and over in precise strokes. Nohara Rin. Nohara Rin. Each character stark.
The window’s fractured. There’s blood on the glass, blood on his desk, blood on the blackboard, oozing down in thick crimson streaks.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
The sickening sound grows louder and louder, filling the whole room like the chime of the school bell, ringing in Obito’s ears until the walls start to tremble, each thud shaking the entire building. He stumbles to feet and claps his hands over his ears, yelling indistinctly, but Minato keeps drawing, and Rin keeps writing, until he’s begging: can’t you hear it, can’t any of you fucking hear it, goddamn you, look—
He snaps awake with a shout, sheets drenched in sweat. His chest heaves wildly as he takes stock of his surroundings, clutching the kunai he keeps beneath the pillow. Slowly, the bloodied classroom recedes from his mind’s eye, and the familiar contours of the bedroom come back into focus. His gaze lands on the two pairs of slippers beside the bed: one well-worn and patched, the other woven with fresh straw. The bed is cold, so Kakashi’s left for work already. Judging by the light piercing through the curtains, it’s well past noon. He squeezes his eyes shut, chasing away the last vestiges of the dream. Scrubs a hand down his face, letting go of the kunai. He needs a drink.
“–and I swear, it’s staring at me. Every time it hits the window, it’s staring at me with these beady little eyes, and I’m just frozen, like, the fuck is wrong with this thing? I’m sitting there watching it killing itself and I can’t even move, and all I can think is, what does it want? Can it even see me? Is it just seeing its own reflection? Shit, I don’t know. I don’t fuckin’ get it. Why won’t it stop? Why can’t anyone else hear it? And why the fuck won’t Minato-sensei shut up? I mean, I can’t even do anything, can’t lift a finger to open the window and put the damn thing out of its misery, and I swear, seriously, every time, right before I wake up, I swear it looks me right in the eye. I can see it see me. I can see that it sees me watching it. And then I wake up.”
“I didn’t ask,” Sasuke says.
"That's fucked up," Sakura offers.
“Do you think it’s trying to tell you something?” Naruto asks.
Obito downs the rest of his beer and slumps against the sticky table.
“I think I’m going crazy,” he admits.
“And I think you’ve had enough.”
Obito turns, and sure enough, Kakashi’s leaning against the booth, surveying them amusedly. There’s a new bandage on his bicep, and he smells like a few days’ travel: dust and old sweat.
“Sensei!” Naruto exclaims, flailing in his eagerness to stand. Sasuke catches a stray elbow to the side and curses him out. “Sit down, sit down! You never join us anymore!”
Obito wonders how Naruto ends each sentence with an audible exclamation point. Is this what it’s like to be young?
“Ah, not tonight, Naruto,” Kakashi says, eye curving. He’s using his making-excuses voice, so Obito tunes him out, squinting at the rip in his sleeve. Is that dried blood on his pants?
“You’ll never get that old man to stay,” Sasuke says. Naruto’s tugging on Kakashi’s sleeve and Kakashi’s got his entire hand spread over his face, pushing him down like he’s a particularly unruly cat. Sakura’s stealing his drink while he’s distracted. “Haven’t you heard? Geezers have an early bedtime.”
“Brat,” Obito says.
“We should get going,” Kakashi says, immediately proving Sasuke’s point. “It’s late.”
He’s met with a chorus of protests, and Obito snickers a little when even Sasuke starts to frown at Naruto’s behest. Weak. He’s about to make fun of him for it when Kakashi sets a warm hand on his shoulder.
“Let’s go home,” he says, and Obito caves immediately. He doesn’t remember why he wanted to stay in the first place. Why’s he wasting his time with the kids when he’s got a perfectly warm bed at home?
“Okay.”
Someone gags dramatically and he flips them off behind his back, stumbling to his feet and wrapping an arm around Kakashi’s waist. He’s warm, a familiar line of heat pressed to Obito’s side.
“Stay out of trouble,” he says, saluting them sloppily.
“We're not doing this again,” Sasuke deadpans. Loser. He saves him a seat every week.
“See you tomorrow!” Naruto cheers.
“Goodnight,” Sakura adds, waving a freshly opened bottle of sake. Gods know where she got it from. “Sweet dreams!”
They stumble to Kakashi’s apartment in a clumsy, circuitous path because Obito’s wrapped himself around Kakashi and refuses to let go. He buries his nose in the short white hair at the back of his neck, inhaling, inexplicably, the sharp tang of gunpowder. Kakashi coaxes him along, voice a quiet murmur. In return, Obito rambles about Kurenai’s missing cat, the construction on the gate, the new peonies at the Yamanakas’ shop. The rest of the walk passes in a haze, indistinct, and then Kakashi’s guiding him through their front door, taking his shoes off for him. He doesn’t register much after that. Just Kakashi, kneeling beside him on the bed, eyes soft. A cool pillow against his cheek, a brush of warmth against his forehead, and then, nothing. Or, cicadas.
If only a warm body was enough to forget. He wakes up before he remembers Rin’s dead this time, shaking so violently that he can’t get his fingers to close around the kunai. The morning light filters gently through the curtains, and Obito wants to scream. The bed’s cold again, and he hasn’t gotten a decent night of sleep in months. Years, if he’s being honest. His eyebags are so pronounced that he doesn’t look in the mirror when he washes his face. Instead, he braces his hands on the sides of the basin, letting the water drip off his nose until he feels marginally more human. Less patchwork, unholy thing.
He wanders into the kitchen and finds Kakashi leaning against the counter, hands curled around a steaming cup of tea.
“Morning.”
“...Morning.”
“Sleep well?”
“...”
Obito sticks a cup under the faucet, filling it to the brim before chugging it down in one go. He’s so tired that some of the water escapes, dripping down his chin before Kakashi catches it with his thumb and wipes it away gently.
He doesn’t want to see Kakashi’s worried frown, so he shuffles to the fridge, eyes half-open, and pulls out some eggs and yesterday’s leftover salmon. He starts making breakfast, rolling the eggs in a pan while Kakashi pours out another cup of tea.
“Where’re you going this time?”
“Sunagakure. I’ll be back in three days.”
He finishes heating up the fish and slides it onto a plate with the omelet. Kakashi thanks him with a brush of his fingers, ducking his head as he digs in.
“Think you can be good while I’m gone?”
“Fuck off. I’m not one of your dogs,” Obito fires back.
“Debatable.”
“Ass.”
“You know, you might as well be one, with the way you’re always sniffing out trouble."
“Look, last time wasn’t my fault. Naruto’s very clumsy.”
Kakashi snorts, and Obito looks up quickly, catching the curl of his mouth before it smooths out.
“You’re worse.”
“S’not my fault. It’s bad genes. They cursed me.”
“Sure, Uchiha.”
The morning passes quietly that way. Kakashi washes his dishes while Obito’s still eating, ducking out the window with a wave. Obito stands by the balcony for a while, gazing out across the village, taking in the bright rooftops and distant chatter of children. The markets will be busy by now, bustling with villagers perusing the farmers’ latest haul. He finishes another cup of tea before closing the window.
The rest of the day is quiet. He cleans the apartment and buys some mackerel. Pays the Yamanaka shop a visit, gets the peonies Kakashi likes and arranges them in a vase on the dining table. He looks at the door and tells himself he’s not waiting. Looks at the couch and recalls Kakashi dozing off on it last week, exhausted after a long day at work. Obito had tucked a blanket around him, thinking he’d looked a little smaller, a little older. He’d pressed a kiss to the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and smoothed a hand over his hair, smiling when Kakashi had leaned into it unconsciously. Familiar. Soothing.
The problem with years of mind control and mass murder is that the violence never really goes away. A lifetime of compounded grief and rage and this is what he gets: a hole in his head, a heart that doesn’t beat, and nightmares that won’t quit. Even when the mind wants to retreat, the body refuses to surrender. Bone doesn’t forget the first break, and Obito can’t forget Madara’s torment.
So today, he wakes, and everything is his fault. His fault he gets a kind home while Naruto grew up without one. His fault he can’t remember anything right, his fault he’s stuck scouring the empty rooms of his memory until he finds the one where Rin is dead.
He’s out of bed and crouched by the window in a flash, forehead pressed to the cool glass in a desperate attempt to ground himself.
“Rin,” he croaks, and, fuck, she was so small. So light and frail in his arms that he’d thought he’d imagined her, pale mouth and narrow shoulders and red, red blood, so much of it, everywhere–
“–bito. Obito.”
He jerks out of it. His surroundings snap back into place. Konoha. He’s in Konoha.
Kakashi rolls over behind him, slinging a heavy arm across the crumpled sheets. He groans a little when he finds empty air, sliding a searching hand around.
“What’re you doing…?”
Obito turns away from the window. Kakashi’s squinting at him in confusion, face half-buried in his pillow and hair a fluffy mess. He grumbles some more when Obito doesn’t respond, tugging the blanket up to his nose. He looks soft and sleepy and slow, and Obito doesn’t want to hurt him. He hasn’t killed a man in years. His hands are clean and dry, and his bed is warm. Kakashi is warm. The war is long over.
“Come back to bed…”
“Sorry,” he says quietly. “Sorry.” He slides back under the covers, and Kakashi kisses his shoulder drowsily, pressing his nose into the curve of his neck.
“S’okay. Go back to sleep.”
Obito hums. He presses a kiss to Kakashi’s hair, smiling at the way it makes him curl closer, like a contented cat.
“Goodnight.”
“Goodnight,” Obito says. He lies awake staring at the ceiling for a long, long time.
Sometimes, Obito starts fights with Kakashi for no real reason. This week, he’s five bottles into a very long night, sick with longing and self-hatred because Kakashi had been gone for a month this time, and Obito had missed him like a sick dog. He’d come back last night in his ridiculous traveling robes and Obito had felt small and foolish, like some hateful, blackened spot on the floor of Kakashi’s home. He knows Kakashi doesn’t see him that way. He knows Kakashi loves him. He’s spent years learning it. But knowing is different than feeling, and right now, he feels like he wants a fight. He wants to get under Kakashi’s skin, wants him cold and cruel. Wants him to look at him like the monster he really is. He hasn’t slept in three days.
This time, he chooses: “What’s the point?”
Kakashi gazes placidly back at him, still holding out a cup of steaming tea. He’s half-dressed now, handsome in an oversized black shirt that falls to the tops of his knees. The neck’s all stretched out from where Obito had grabbed it once, showing a pale glimpse of collarbone. Obito wants to bite it. Wants to get the skin between his teeth like the animal they call him.
“It’ll help you sleep. I got the leaves from Sakura, she says it’s a gift.”
“I don’t want this.”
“Okay,” Kakashi says, eyebrows raised. “Not thirsty?” He presses the back of his other hand to Obito’s cheek and Obito jerks away, head spinning with the force of his rejection. The sake sloshes unpleasantly in his stomach, and he curses his red face and weak disposition, surely ridiculous to Kakashi’s calm appraisal.
“Not that,” Obito snaps. “This. You, being–” He cuts himself off, hunching into himself. “It’s a waste of time.”
Kakashi’s hand stays hovering between them for a moment before it drops to his side. He sits on the edge of the bed, setting the cup on the bedside table with a muted clink.
“Okay. What’s this about?”
Obito can feel him watching him, waiting patiently. Ready to listen. It’s fucking unbearable.
“It’s just pretend,” he says, waving a hand around the room. Filled with soft sheets and souvenirs from Kakashi’s trips and their stupid matching slippers. Evidence of a life shared, a love built. “All of this. You go on your trips and talk all your fancy treaty shit, and, what? No one asks about the rabid dog you’ve got chained in your house?
“Don’t talk about yourself like that,” Kakashi says, frowning.
“Fuck you. There’s nothing real for us here. Hell, you’ve got me waiting up for you like a good little wife. It’s pathetic.” He hiccups. “I’m getting sick of this. I’m getting sick of you.”
“Obito.”
“You’re pathetic,” he snarls. Even now, Kakashi’s leaning towards him, the vulnerable curve of his throat right within reach. Why is he so careless around him? Doesn’t he remember? How much he wanted to hurt him? How much he liked it?
“I know you're sick of me too. Disgust you, don't I?” he accuses.
Kakashi’s so quiet. Obito stares at him defiantly.
“There is a life for us here,” Kakashi says, after a long pause. He’s still looking at Obito all soft-eyed and stupid, each word painstakingly measured. “Listen to me. There is.”
“You don’t know that–”
“I do.” Kakashi finally raises his voice, and Obito clenches his fists. Good.
“I know, because we made all of this. Together.”
“We didn’t–”
“Put every damn thing into it, and you know it, too. Took it and made it all our own. Right here. And every time I’m out there, every time I’m talking my fancy treaty shit and cozying it up with some bastards who’ve never fought a real battle, I’m thinking about you. I’m thinking about what you’re doing, if you’re sleeping, if you’re eating, if you’re chasing the neighbor’s cat, if you’re thinking about me too.”
He pauses and draws in a heavy breath.
“Just this morning, I was spacing out, looking out the window, and I saw this little bluebird land right outside. And all I wanted to do was tell you about it.”
“Well, you’re wasting your time,” Obito says childishly, only a little choked up. “I’m sick of birds.” He feels ill. He can see it so clearly: Kakashi, excited to tell Obito about his stupid little bird. Opening the door and finding him sprawled on the floor instead, red-faced and rambling. His ears burn.
“It was beautiful. You would’ve loved it.”
“This is never going to work,” Obito bites out. He feels more than hears Kakashi’s soft exhale, memory hunting the motion of his breath, the heat of his mouth.
“What do you want me to do?”
Obito stares back at him, fists clenching and unclenching. Make it hurt. Make it worse. Fight. Scream. He hasn't been this bad in years. He doesn’t get any of it out before Kakashi speaks again.
“Because I’ll be whatever you want me to be. But I won’t be your enemy, Obito. Not again.”
Obito inhales sharply.
“There’s nothing for us here,” he repeats, voice barely above a whisper.
“There’s love,” Kakashi says firmly. “And joy, and warmth, and a home, Obito. A real one.”
Too honest. Too soft. In every word, he feels it: the years it took Kakashi to say them. The years he spent practicing them, with Obito and without. Time passing them by. He swallows, throat clicking in the silence. Finally, he asks the real question:
“How can you live with it? With everything I’ve done?”
“I love you and I live with that.” Kakashi’s voice doesn’t waver. “Can you?”
Obito shuts his eyes. Three days ago he woke up wanting to hurt him. Most days he wakes up wanting to hurt himself. He doesn’t know how much of his head is his own and how much is Madara.
“I don’t want it to hurt,” he admits to the darkness, chest aching. “Being with me.”
“It doesn’t.” Obito opens his eyes, ready to call him on the lie, but Kakashi barrels on. “Nothing can be worse than losing you. Okay? So we live with it. We weather this, together, until you remember it again. No matter how long it takes. You’re a good man.”
Obito’s shoulders slump. Kakashi rests a hand on his knee, and Obito sets his on top, curling their fingers together.
“You’re a fool,” Obito says hoarsely.
Kakashi cups his cheek in his other hand, thumb tracing the scars on his face. Following the bumpy skin from nose to cheekbone and back again.
“No more than you.”
They sit there in silence until the sun rises, a warm dawn soaking through the window. Gradually, the hated thing in his chest unspools, bit by bit, moment by moment.
"What did you do."
“It reminded me of you.”
Kakashi’s covered head-to-toe in paint, and he’s holding out a small sleeping cat figurine, intricately carved from wood. He’s dripping blue and green all over the floor. The cat has somehow escaped the mess. The fur on its head is a little spiky.
“I’m going to kill you,” Obito says grimly. “Get in the bath. Now.” When Kakashi doesn’t move, he snatches the cat from his hand, scowling at the smile he senses beneath the mask. “Go!”
Kakashi disappears in a flash, and Obito carefully sets the figurine on the kitchen counter, staring at the footprints seeping into the floorboards in despair. He sighs deeply, prays to his uncursed ancestors, and shrugs his shirt off, shedding the rest of his clothes before he joins Kakashi in the wash. Kakashi makes room for him easily, stepping forward as Obito slides the curtain back.
“Do I even want to know?”
“Ah, some of the kids got carried away, what can I say?”
Obito sprays him in the face with the showerhead, and Kakashi splutters, face scrunching. Good.
“You’re an idiot.”
“Who am I to stand in the way of artistic inspiration?”
“You’re getting a little old for this, sensei.”
Kakashi shudders.
“Don’t call me that.”
Obito douses his head in soap.
“Turn around, idiot.”
Kakashi complies easily, and Obito works his hands through his hair, rubbing the soap into his scalp until the bubbles run down his neck and shoulders. Kakashi leans into it happily, humming quietly. Spoiled bastard. He smoothes a gentle hand down his back, scrubbing away some errant purple streaks.
“You’re a mess.”
“Mm. Good thing I’ve got you waiting at home to clean me up.”
Obito repositions the showerhead, washing his hair carefully until the water runs clear. Presses a light kiss to the dimple on Kakashi’s shoulder.
“Lucky you.”
He finishes up quickly, wrapping Kakashi in a thick, fluffy towel before he dries himself off. When he slips into bed, Kakashi sets his book aside immediately, curling an arm around his waist. He’s still warm, a little overheated from the shower, and Obito presses his nose into the side of his hair. Kakashi presses a kiss to the scarred side of his face in return, lips dry and soft.
“Sleep,” he says, and so they do.
Some days, when he wakes with Rin’s name still bloodying his mouth, and Kakashi hasn’t left the bed yet, they lie in each other’s arms and trade stories.
It’s been a long time since Obito only knew love as the wrong end of a blade. These days, they get to be lazy with love. They’re both old men by shinobu standards. They’ve outlived countless comrades, lost more loved ones than they care to think about. Obito finds new gray strands in his hair every month, and Kakashi's smile lines deepen every year. So they sit, and talk, and take their time. And sometimes, Kakashi hums the songs Rin used to sing at the lake by his father’s house.
Sometimes, Obito tells stories about his time with the Akatsuki — some are fully rendered, others distorted by Madara and Zetsu, like looking through warped glass and seeing someone else’s reflection.
A year after the Akatsuki had formed, he’d been carrying out a solo mission, camping in some forest. He’d chosen a nearby stream to fish, and staring at his wavy reflection in the water, he’d thought of Kakashi. A blurred thought, free of violence, just a flash of silver hair and dark eyes and the smell of grilled fish before the old rage had settled in.
“I hated you,” Obito says, voice small. He scratches at a scab on his knuckle, lost in the memory. “I wanted to kill you.”
“I know,” Kakashi says. When Obito tips his head up, he’s looking right back, mismatched eyes tormented by the same ghosts. Obito aches to reach out and cradle his face in his hands, to draw out the pain like a poison in his mouth.
“I’m not good. I’ve never been good,” he admits instead, too exhausted from his nightmare to filter himself.
Kakashi shakes his head, but Obito continues, “I was looking at my reflection, and I thought that if I could just see what you saw, then maybe… maybe I could be good again. Like you used to be. And if I was good, in some twisted sort of way, I could have you back. Even then, I still missed you.” He laughs bitterly, a short bark. “I was so fucked up back then.”
“No,” Kakashi says gently. “Just young.”
Obito closes his eyes.
“Maybe.”
“Come here,” Kakashi says, and Obito turns his face into his chest, letting the tears soak into his shirt. Kakashi strokes his hair and doesn’t say anything when Obito starts to shake, doesn’t make any cracks about outgrowing his crybaby habits. He just smoothes his hand down his neck, shushing him like a small child.
“Shhh. Shh. It’s okay. It’s okay, love. It’s okay.”
Nothing else matters now that he has him.
Kill enough people, destroy enough genjutsu-fueled alternate realities, and life starts to feel a little meaningless. But Obito’s never really been good at being alone, has he?
They don’t live for vengeance or honor anymore. No codes, no gods, just each other. Two fixed points in every life, every dream, every nightmare. Keepers of each other's memory. Guardians of hers.
With Kakashi at his side, it's enough. Kakashi, who knows him, haunts him, loves him. Stitched into the very being of him, bound by flesh and faith. Twisted so closely together it’d kill them to know them apart.
A doorway back to himself.
So it’s enough. It’s a life, cupped in Kakashi’s scarred hands, spilling over with its refusal to die. So alive it rages and mourns and laughs, all at once. And isn’t that enough? To walk forward, chin held high, into the mighty mess of it? To live?
When Obito opens his eyes, he’s sitting in an endless field. Green grass stretches as far as the eye can see, rippling in the wind, and the earth is a little wet, cool damp seeping through his pants. The sky is a strange, hazy violet, clouds moving slowly across the expanse of it.
“Obito!” Rin says. She’s beaming at him, hands clasped in excitement. She’s not wearing her hitai-ate, chestnut hair prettily framing her face. He smiles back instinctively.
“Rin?”
“Took you long enough. We’re gonna miss it,” she says, leaning close as if she’s telling him a secret.
“Miss what?”
“The lanterns!” She shoots to her feet, knees wet where she’d been kneeling in the grass. She holds out a hand, eyes twinkling. “C’mon.”
Obito takes her hand, and she tugs him to his feet.
“Let’s go,” she says, and they break into a run, flying over the green, green grass. Her hair streams behind her, getting longer and longer, silky and fragrant. When he tries to see where they’re going, his eyes slide away like oil from water. Rin laughs wildly, carelessly girlish, and they’re eight, they’re fifteen, they’re everywhere, they’re nowhere at all, and she’s telling him to catch up.
“Come on,” she says, again and again. “Come on. We’ll miss it.”
“I’m trying!” he says, but no matter how hard he wills them, his legs won’t move any faster.
“Come on!” Rin calls, turning back to him with a smile. All around them, the sky begins to lighten, violet fading into pink. The strange sun turns her cheeks rosy, and she’s really quite beautiful. Always has been. He’s sorry he never told her.
“Obito,” she says, small hand tightening. “Don’t you want to see them?”
He clutches her hand and keeps running. The grass whipping his ankles cool and light. The earth soft beneath his feet.
“Yes,” he says, breathless, and wakes up.
The pillow is wet with his tears. He doesn’t move until Kakashi wipes a gentle thumb across his cheek.
“It was a good dream,” Obito says.
Kakashi smiles, eyes curving.
“I’m glad.”
A flurry of motion at the window pulls his attention away. There’s a small blackbird perched on the windowsill, head cocked.
Kakashi leans over and presses a kiss to his forehead.
“C’mon. If we leave now, we might make it in time for some dango.”
Obito turns back to him, rubbing the grit from one eye. Right. It’s the first day of the New Year.
“Forgot,” he confesses.
“Thought you might.”
Kakashi shifts closer, arms encircling his waist. Obito indulges him for a few quiet moments, tucking his nose against his collarbone. Outside, the sounds of celebration rise to meet them: children chattering, women laughing, koto twanging.
“Tsunade’s gonna kick your ass if you miss the festival,” he finally mumbles.
“Don’t talk about other women in my bed.”
Obito bites him. To his credit, Kakashi only yelps a little.
“Thought you were the one who wanted us to go.”
“Mm, yeah. But you’re so warm. And I’m so comfortable.”
“Lazy old man.”
“Hmm.”
Obito closes his eyes. Listens to the strong, steady thrum of Kakashi’s heart. The sunlight through the window at once unbearable and beautiful. They can afford to be a little late. They’ve got a lifetime to make it up, after all.
and you woke me with what I know not
the harshest softness
or the most careful of violence
and your face was the first I saw
in the familiar light of this new place
— Anis Mojgani