Thirty-Two Minutes

Our footsteps crunch on the sand-covered cement
as you shove your calloused fingers deep into the folds of your pants,
hiding in safety from the chance of touching my side.
We walk straight to where the road bends to the right.

The embers burn orange at the end of your cigarette as you take another drag in silence. 
Only your teeth brim the velvet darkness from a moonlit sky.

An unseen creature runs in front of our footsteps.

We feel him for a moment before he scampers off to the left.

My eyes wander up to the diamond sky as it winks and twinkles at us with mischief

like there's something else going on but we missed it.  

The crisp air clears my sinuses like a mint and I feel the sticky salt air cling to my skin.

I focus on the words suddenly falling out of your mouth, 
letting the syllables take shape in my brain. 

Before I know it, my watch tells me thirty-two minutes have gone by

since you told me I was the one you'd looked for all your life.

I ask myself, "why thirty-two minutes ago was so different

from all the thirty-two minutes of the five years you've let go?"

I keep waiting for the cocoons to hatch in my stomach again, 

for the familiar butterflies to emerge and begin their flight

like they have ever since the moment we met.

But nothing happens. 

I listen to see if the world has stopped spinning – if time has stilled –

and wait as you speak of "when" and "until" as if I haven't said those words

so many times before, losing battles to you but still keep fighting the war

so you’ll stay in my life as something, anything, hoping this winter will lead to a spring.

And now you're waving the white flag at me telling me that you finally see I am the one?

Again you say I am the woman of your dreams like I’m not reacting the way you imagined.

I hear you. I'm listening, but something is wrong,

and I see that the moment is gone like all the years before it went – silent.

I know you better than you’ve ever known me and though you’re saying the words

I’ve wanted to hear for hours, days, months, years,

they’re just letters strung together with no evidence to prove you feel what you say you do. 

Maybe it’s not what you expected but finally, I get it –
Underneath this ebony sky another day is going by like every other day we’ve lived –

both together and apart –

and I see that thirty-two minutes have passed since the dream of us became a part of our past.

Your loneliness led you here, not your heart,

and if I was really the girl you’ve dreamed of your whole life,

you would’ve known at seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, or even twenty

like you do now at twenty-one.

I’m not your fantasy.

I never have been –

I’m just the one person still standing in the wreckage you’ve made of your life

and what you said thirty-two minutes ago doesn’t disguise the reality we live in.

We’ll be friends until we know better.