I can see us then. I will be smoking again (because I will be a writer again), and I fear you will be married, but the distance will have brought us closer despite our differences. We’ll sit on the front step in the neighborhood where I hope you’ll stay, me in my personal fog watching you with your beer as the sun sets. You, always with a beer. You will look at me too long, and I will shrug my shoulders and make a bad joke that you will pretend to like. Mash out cigarette on step; flick into street; look ahead; bite lip; there will be nothing new for you to see in me.
I’m not sure how, at this point, we will be in the habit of saying goodbye.
I will walk the ten blocks alone, even in the dusk and even though I will look behind me every dozen feet to see if you are still sitting there, watching me. I will smile and wave every time, but I’ll be faking it. I’ve learned that love is the saddest thing once we let ourselves get roped into it. If only we were stronger, if only we were harder, if only we didn’t care.
I will walk the ten blocks, I know where I am going even if we don’t know where we are.
