The man with a banana in each hand.
The elderly twin women with greying hair and stoic faces.
“Simon, Simon. Simon’s a ****.”
The man with the piercing blue eyes, loose tie, and nervous glances,
Hiding in the collar of his wool coat.
The woman with short blonde hair sitting halfway on a stool,
Dunking her bagel into a cup of coffee.
A small French boy begging his father for attention.
A French father absorbed in the screen of his smartphone.

Hundreds of faces and averted glances.
I’ve fallen in love with dozens of strangers,
Embarking on their dream journeys,
Their honeymoons, and simple business trips.
I don’t know where they are going,
And I will forget them by the morning.

I found love where it wasn’t supposed to be,
In the absinthe eyes of a perfect stranger.
Beautiful people in beautiful cities;
Where do I fit in?
I want to fix his coffee each morning,
Fix his tea each night.
I want to bake him pastries that he will crave when I’m not around,
Because the bakery down the street isn’t me.
I want to be the one to caress his back,
Run my fingers through his hair
When he wakes up afraid in the middle of the night.
I’ll give anything to be his safe haven.
The things we do for love, eh?
If only he would look at me
As I pass him on the crowded sidewalk.

I get a little bit sick to my stomach
Each time I see that repulsive blue heart.
Who else will be holding hands now,
Swapping kisses for hours,
Making love in the darkness?
I seem to be the odd one out
When double dates are planned.
Everyone says they haven’t seen me in forever,
Everyone says that they miss me,
Everyone says that I’m too beautiful to be alone.
Nobody seems to realize
That I’m always around,
Sitting in coffeeshop corners,
Or in the backs of cinemas,
Relationship status: single.

It's the awkwardness and strangeness and
slugging-in-time-ness
of discovering a new
person.
Too often, movies portray the meeting of the
protagonists as some
heady rush or a
whirlwind of sparks or some
******* like that.
In reality, it's a slow fire
laboriously
begun with two
sticks.

And sometimes that fire never even starts.

Some nights I don't even care
that you don't care and that's how i know we're both
burnt out, like cigarettes, sticking to the walls of the other's lungs;
maybe i'm just fooling myself because deep down i know
that really, we were just
matches that wouldn't light from the start...
They say suicide is attempted every 40 seconds but i doubt
you'd bother to get to know me well enough to
break into me through the balcony and not my bedroom window within the seconds left- 39,
38,
37,
36...
i'm confident that you had me falling under 20..
You didn't even bother to catch my eyes through
the bars today, you didn't even bother to find out
that my very own existence might be able to be summed up in the way I've thought of the rain hitting the
pavement as tiny dancing butterflies ever since i was five..
four, three...
Why would you speak as if you were pulling me close when really all you've been doing, is pulling me apart?
Why would you remind me to stop holding my breath
when I've been catching my breath on you?
I don't want you in my lungs