You called on Valentine’s Day,
out for dinner with friends.
Their confused laughter in the background,
a soft ambiant noise of the world around you.
You said, Let’s pretend, just for fun,
that you’re here, sitting right across from me.
So I smiled, and I closed my eyes,
letting your words paint the moment.
I imagined the clink of glasses,
the soft rustling of menus,
I let myself be transported there,
as if this was a reality we could share.
And for a while, I let myself believe
that this was what it could feel like,
if we ever crossed the line between pretend and real,
between the almost and the never.
But as always, the laughter faded and the call ended,
I was left with the ache of what could never be.
Just another moment of ours,
in a world of make-believe.
And so, I sat in the silence
after we hung up, I felt trapped there
still only in the realm of "what if"
where love always lives just out of reach.