Platform rumbled and the doors open. The smell of the putrid body order and stale alcohol took over the nostalgic smell of you. Back in Oakland I went to that small café of Webster where we had once wrote in silence while drinking drip coffee and not talked about how we cannot live with each other. It wasn’t love we both had realized, but the idea of love.
We had walked around the Mission days previous and saw the Christmas lights glitter with hope of families and decorated trees. Holding hands and talking of a future not involving each other although we did not admit it. You wanted little ones running throughout your earthquake bound townhouse. I wanted a home by the bay and a room for writing and waiting/ we could never agree on the color of salmon but quibbled endlessly over the tone of peach.
Before the platform, before the tunnel to Oakland, before the café where we had not talked we had seen the future boil down to an incident that reflected all the reasons that we could not make it.
Your painting still hangs over my bed and I’m sure you look at that poem I wrote you on a daily basis. All we lost was time, a name and some nonsensical debates.
