16/01/2024
We might not meet again –
or so I hope we never will.
Yet if for some reason we will, let it be on one Sunday evening, at the old cathedral where we promised to try again. Just like we did for the hundredth time.
Please don’t ask where we’ve gone wrong. Do not try to utter words that make your voice crack and make your eyes scream in yearning, failing to bask all that with your laughter. That would be my favorite sound that was muted and lost along with your favorite song.
And as you might ask for a cup of coffee, I may agree though I prefer tea. You might want to talk about what could have and could have not but I’m over them. I’ve already gone through those thoughts enough that I perfectly know where it leads. To another bucket of tears that should have long dried and another set of wounds to tend.
But I’ll still take that sip of bitter coffee quietly with you, staring at how you try to gulp all that longing with your favorite black coffee. I’ll try to memorize again how your eyes glimmer as your brows furrow when you think seriously. I’ll stare again, if not for the last time, at how your veins tauntingly wrap around your forearms and hands, reminding me of the empty spaces in mine and the cold spaces left around me when you were gone.
If we ever meet again, please don’t spoil things. Let the awkwardness swallow us in place of the cozy home we built around us when we were once in love.
Please don’t spoil that moment though we might be deafen by how our heart beats. Do not tell me words beneath your breath.
Do not shed even a single tear. I might pull you into my embrace again, caressing your hair as I tell you “it’s okay” - when it was not.
Please just let the silence consume us until it’s time to go.
At that day, I might be wearing my office dress that I’ve been dreaming of. I might be wearing my glasses which might have a higher grade, and my dreams might have come true already. Dreams that I had planned to chase with you.
On that day, I might not yet forget how I tried to held you into my arms against your back as you walk away from that room uptown when we ended. My tears may have dried in your shirt long ago but my heart is still filled with stains of that day.
Years may have passed, and so many things may change; but then again, I am still the same girl you met ten years ago. Still in love with your oversized tops, your eyes, and your soul. And for once, for both of us, I won’t spill the coffee and ask to make things right.
I will walk away even though I said that day, “I will always love you.” I will walk away though to me, always means a lifetime.
I’ve made up my mind a long time ago, I will never come back into your arms again. No matter how my heart yearns for you, I will never give us a chance again. No matter how my hands miss yours, I will never touch you again.
So let us never meet again. I hope we never will. But if we ever will, don’t ask where we’ve gone wrong. Don’t ask for a cup of coffee. Do not spill the coffee. Let us walk passed each other, like strangers do.
— Andreah
Sept. 17, 2020
A reply to my earlier work, 𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐖𝐞 𝐒𝐩𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐂𝐨𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐞 𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐮𝐩 𝐖𝐚𝐬 𝐋𝐨𝐧𝐠 𝐁𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐄𝐦𝐩𝐭𝐲.
(https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=941814407307089&id=100044356153479&mibextid=Nif5oz)
Photography: Anne Sexton
