I will walk down the street one afternoon years from now and as the sun shines I’ll shield my eyes with my hand and as you walk the other way, you will not remember. Our baby fat will have long since melted away and when you turn around and pause for a second, you’ll think to yourself, “Hm, well she looks familiar.” Then go on with your day while I sit at the cafe patio sipping a milkshake wondering if I should cook dinner or wait for my darling to come home.
As days pass and intuitions become instinct, we’ll walk past each other wondering if the other noticed us. Of course, we’ll have noticed. We had walked the streets that smelled like vanilla in our youth, traced the outskirts of that park where once upon a time we reminisced of all the people surrounding us, of course we’ll have noticed. The way your eyes still hide behind thick rimmed glasses, the way your jeans are no longer ripped and tattered but neat and pressed, do I still look the same to you?
Hold on, just a moment, this is where my phone will ring and my darling will have laced the words together with pixelated symbols asking, “Love, when are you coming home?” While at the very same time, she’ll kiss you on the cheek good night and no longer will you dwell on the fact that it was me who used to creep up behind you and plant my lips on your cheek.
In the morning, darling and I will walk the crowded sidewalk to the little old cafe and sit on the patio sipping tea and eating pastries when she comes out with her order linking her arm into yours and you’ll be captivated by her smile. The way she says your name is unlike any melody that’s ever escaped another, you will not remember your youth and what it was like to love for the first time. And as you both walk away with her arm linked in yours, I’ll have giggled at something my darling will have said and only in your dreams will you recall it.
At night, the sky will blaze under the sorrowful eyes of all who gaze upwards towards the sky. This is where we’ll lie in bed next to the one we love and remember what it was like to love for the first time, I remember your father’s house. The way it smelled of laundry detergent and scented candles and how your room was so bland, I gave you a ceramic penguin to add a touch of adorable to the drabness. I’ll look over in bed next to me and trace his lips with my fingers to remember what it was like to kiss yours, not because I miss it but because of how shocked I am to have ever loved anyone before him.
And if our hearts will still have held such fondness, we will never dare say hello when we walk by each other on that sidewalk by the cafe patio. You’ll pay for your coffee and I’ll sip my milkshake and as you wonder how I’m doing, why my hair is longer than you were used to, or if I still drink tea since all you see in my hands are milkshakes, I’ll sit in my chair wondering the very same thing. Wondering if you love her with all your heart and if she kisses you before bed and if all those smiles correspond to happiness and if you still drank tea cause all you have in your hands are cups of coffee, we will think of each other in those moments late at night when the moon comforts us all. We will remember the love we had for one another and smile for the love we have now. Then we will forget it all for the moment as I get up to throw away my milkshake and you finish your last sip of coffee.
