When you meet him down the hall
After three months of being 1000 miles away
There will be no candlelit dinner,
No couch bought after searching for hours on a Saturday afternoon
Meant only to spend Sunday evenings on it snuggling.

You will not have a first dance,
A first child together,
A first anything.
He will not call you “his girl,”
Or tell you that he loves you.

You will not tell him that you love him either
Because you know it’s crazy to tell
A married man you’re hopelessly in love with him and everything about him -
To expect
Him to drop his wife and everything he is doing,
To drop to his knees and propose to you with a plastic ring
Because he knows you’re cheap and he hates jewelry.
It’s crazy to think that he will hold your face in his soft palms
And allow his lips to press against yours,
To mimic all the passion in your heartbeats that call his name.

He will not touch more than your shoulder.
It will mean nothing.
He will smile at you,
Not because you are you,
But because you might have said something funny -
People smile over more than love and coffee
And you’ll never spend lunch with him in a downtown café, anyways.

It won’t be because you prefer strawberry tea,
It will be because he prefers another woman’s presence over any gift you could’ve given him.
You will be kind to the woman he chose instead,
Because, like her husband, she is clueless
To the thoughts that keep you up at night,
Talking to your pillowcase about blue orchids and a gold band he will probably lose.

He will never know that he is the ex
That solves the equation
Of your happily ever after.