Dear former love,

I saw you the other day, from a dark room. You were in the light. Our positions formed a curtain, a mirror where I could see through to you but you could only see yourself in a reflection. I wonder now if you can truly see yourself when you try to see me. If looking for me only brings you back to the things inside of you that pushed me away.

I saw you the other day. You were chatting with old friends, probably happy to see that you’re back again (a sentiment I do not share). But that’s your muse—disappear at your convenience and reappear just when everyone’s accustomed to your absence. I saw you and I felt the pangs of foreign familiarity, the face of someone I knew but didn’t know. I no longer felt warmth in your presence. Its absence was replaced with an incorrigible need to shake your memory from my fingertips. To share the same air as you, the same friends as you, the same town as you? A shame, at best.

I saw you the other day. I hope I can avoid it more efficiently in the future.

-ck