he never tried to tell her how he felt.
he never struggled to find words to explain
the thing that happened in his chest when she smiled.
which means she never had to interrupt him halfway through,
she never needed to carefully define the relationship,
and he never had to pretend to be cool with that.
he never stumbled home, words now failing to explain
the empty new thing happening in his chest
never hid himself in his room, for months,
studying software and circuitry, anything to distract
he never built the device which accidentally allowed
the zir armada to locate our planet.
at least that is how we hope it will go
deep in the secret underground labs,
the last desperate hope of humanity.
chrononauts painting their skins with the silver liquid
needed to protect them as they pass through the portal
dis-instanced and ripped from reality
propelled by malevolent temporal lightnings
those who survive will arrive
if calculations are correct, at the precise instant
needed to prevent the one conversation
which doomed us all