I guess it does make me sad sometimes
The gaps on my wall
Places that you used to be
Now just empty
It’s like you’re drifting away
A ghost
And I do wonder if it all was real
If it hadn’t been how does it feel so real
I can still remember that day in the gardens
It is strange
Stranger
That’s all you are now
But I know every tiny detail about you
But I’m not supposed to anymore
I’m supposed to forget that you like the colour purple, like my grandpa
Forget how you chew your nails
The disapproving looks you’d give me
Those nights
The way that you sleep
And I’m supposed to be sad about it
I don’t think about it
But when I go into great detail
Like the first night we kissed
Eating neapolitan ice cream
You putting aloe Vera on my sunburnt feet
Me making you kiss my dog three times
It doesn’t feel real
And then it always circles back to how bad you’d make me feel
And I remember why I shouldn’t feel terrible
I remember why it can’t work
And now I’ll never know you like that again
Probably never even speak again.

Hey babe.. Or maybe hey stranger is more applicable..
Because there is a lot of room for change in 619 days..
And enough time for a life where “you and I” existed to become past tense leaving two
individuals tied together by nothing but fragile strings of memories that will inevitably fade
enough to be painted over by a brighter color
Anyway,
I woke up last night gasping for air
Reaching for the ghost of you
Choking on the memory of how you made me feel whole
Sometimes I find myself wishing I had stayed home that night
Begging my brain to forget the first time I saw your smile
Or how your lips moved when you called me by the wrong name
My name you have since said thousands of ways and perfected in every tone
But I can't forget
I can't let go of the little things like how the freckles that pepper your shoulders get darker in the
summer
Or the story behind every scar
One night you traced a map to our future across my skin with black ink claiming there would be
no end
But the marker wasnt permanent
Eventually washing away
leaving me lost
screaming pleas of take me backs
Trying to retrace my steps
Waiting on something that has already disappeared

Is it worth sharing these moments
as we're trapped in a cage of lies
Let's become, again, just strangers
living happy, lonely lives

only two dancers
remain standing
shuffling
   and swaying
under syncopated lights
held by
an unspoken law
an apparently unavoidable
trait of human nature
that forces them
to continue despite
such terrible choices
of song
and persistence
each was merely
a "friend
   of the bride"
moving in different circles
prior to this
their dancefloor meeting
unfortunately
neither can now
abandon the other
to dance alone
to risk being seen
as the cause
for bringing this
near-sacred ritual
to an end
these residual bodies
left with no choice
but to mirror
each movement
match every sidestep
echo every clap
with rhythm
   or without
it will not matter
so long as this
transient solidarity
of misplaced confidence
and forced smiles
continues into
the next song

I can't speak for the others
I can only reflect on my own thoughts and the heat of discomfort.

I can't speak for the woman who wept beside her oversized suitcases on the Piccadilly Line to Heathrow, I can only consider her tears and what they did to my own heartache.

I didn't speak, but I reached over after several minutes of communal silence and placed a tissue (clean and unused) on her lap.  Before I was back in my seat, she had taken it and covered her face in her grief and the tears came again.

The grandmother across from me got up next and placed a red stripped mint on the woman's skirt.

The dad who stood in the doorway, dressed for the beach, followed, leaving an offering of a capri-sun.

The child in the pram looked up at his mother and she smiled encouragement to him, as he offered his Spider-Man, pressing it to the woman's hand

and as she unveiled her face and saw the offerings, she laughed, brief and wet, but with a smile that stayed.  She hugged Spider-Man, nodded and then with a sensibility to a child's needs, handed it back with thanks.

After a moment she found my eyes, and mimed a request for a fresh tissue and then in the silence she settled for her journey as we all looked away, dutifully silent.