of reasons

Why are you doing this to me, he asks.You smile and shrug. Your reasons are shut inside, like the pages of a book you know word-for-word. Only, the book is in a language nobody else can understand. All he can perhaps do is read the title.

You’re so cold. How do you sleep at night, he wants to know. He looks tense.

It’s like this, you say. My conscience curls up around me in bed, and I fall asleep.

That ought to shut him up, at least for now.

But it doesn’t. He looks into your eyes with a vague question. You have no answers to give him, except those that are languishing in your book of reasons.