it's weird meeting with people
who actually loved you
after months have passed
this love that once strived to be permanent
like conquering mountains
but i shed it like snakeskin
forever is way too hard
when you're too selfish to love people back
always chose myself
did you know your feelings
were the greatest gift i've ever known?

i thought if i arrived here early
and gave you no set time
i would have a bit of the morning to myself
but you were already around the corner
i knew you would be
i know you well, too

i didn't let us go deep this rainy morning
we should only go forward from here
not backwards
we talk
hell, we live in small talk
i say i thrive in summer
you talk about the snow
not much has changed
and somehow weather preferences
felt like the biggest incompatibility then
the most mundane of compromises

didn't run to my own defenses
or fall to your knees apologizing
didn't tell you if i pray or who i've slept with
or that i spent the last three days
crying on the jumpseat
we talk about the coffee shop
i just came here to create a new memory
stub out everything that was
like a stale cigarette
see? i haven't changed that much

instead i say i'm tired of sitting in the back of the plane
as people probe and poke my sides like an insect
asking for coffee with five packets of splenda
i say new york is a drag most days
i am lonely
i wonder if i'm pregnant
it's the only reason i stopped binge drinking
i woke up and wasn't hungover
thank god
i wouldn't admit that i miss the noise
of dry heaving over a toilet bowl

you didn't pay for my coffee
or pour your soul out
or drive me home
you say you leave today
you don't even say you came here for me
because you are just as free to be
so i nod and begin putting my headphones on
before even saying goodbye
i leave the conversation abruptly
ending on a note about
how many cape verdeans
live in boston
i grab my bouquet of sunflowers
slip away into the brooklyn fog
i was gone before you knew it
all the effort you put to be here
with me today
for me to walk out the door
reminiscent of what i did to you then
on a smaller scale

you say "until next time"
but you know i'll slip through the cracks
like i do
predictable me
and even when you find me
i'll be on the run