strangers, i presume

i’d like to describe your smile as auspicious. you see me not as i was, but as i am- as though we’re being introduced seven years after we met.

two months made strangers out of us.

my fake aperol spritz is running low. the bartender is on her phone. there’s a lock of hair escaped from her tight ponytail that she blows out of her eyes.

when i was her, you were an acquaintance and there was no cause to be aware of our distance. now weeks are measured in the texts i don’t receive.

you hurt me.

a gathering in the corner is singing happy birthday. you have to wonder if someone who can carry a tune is really that rare or if we all just purposely neuter our vocal cords so that we don’t seem like try-hards.

i want to leave.

i want to not want to leave.

there are four tourists on the patio splitting a carafe of skin-contact wine. they’re jovial. if any of them are tormented by their company, they’re fooling me.

tomorrow, we can choose to be like them again.

this discomfort is temporary.

at least that’s how i imagine it.