One New Song at 2:11

the playlist still says two people can edit it. i forget that until nights like this one.

we made it for a drive that kept getting pushed back, a trip we planned for a summer that didn't happen. after that we just kept dropping songs into it instead of talking. it was easier. you'd add something at some odd hour and i'd find it in the morning and know you'd been up.

nothing new since march. i checked the date twice because i didn't believe it either. four months of the same forty-one songs, in the same order, the little cover art all faded to memory.

then tonight, forty-two. added 2:11am. some quiet track i don't know, the kind you used to send with no message attached.

i held my thumb over the little plus sign for a while. there's a song i keep almost adding back. i keep almost.

i scrolled up to the top instead, to the first ones we put in. every timestamp on my side is after 2am. i never noticed that before. we only ever touched this thing when we couldn't sleep. it was never the drive. it was just knowing the other one was awake too, in some other dark room, reaching for the same small thing.