vulnerability

I passed by an old lover today

I would hardly call him a lover.

he was sitting in a restaurant with a woman

and eating with two others

we locked eyes for a split fragment of a second

I kept walking, looking forward

as if I had never known him

as if we hadn’t spent nights together

holding each other in our arms

as if we hadn’t clung to each other for dear life

like a child glued to the hip of its mother.

I kept walking

with each step convincing myself

that it only existed for a moment

a moment that is now a different realm entirely.

it existed here

and now it does not.

how can presence feel so eternal?

and in the next moment

the memory of it is ever fleeting?

I keep walking

sifting through memories

of all the lovers that kept me warm

kept me company

kept me present

and now kept only in a small space in my chest.

he was hardly a lover

but I’ll always have love big enough for two.