Concrete Stairs

I met you

on concrete stairs.

You wouldn’t look at me.

You'd like to rewrite history

and delete the part with me in it.

You want to pretend none of it happened -

batted eyelids across the staffroom,

shared moments others were oblivious to,

a motherlode of connections

on all levels.

Warmth in my chest from just fleeting contact,

clear water pumping gently through my arteries,

cleansing my soul, lifting me,

sustaining me,

into the darkest evenings.

‘It could never work’, someone said.

‘The timing is just wrong’, another observed.

‘It’, whatever ‘it’ was, was never acknowledged.

But ‘it’, whatever ‘it’ was, was real

and we both knew it.

Years passed

that which never happened slowly muted,

the affair I never had,

paralyzed by social mores,

but you were still on my mind.

Now here we are, face to face.

I silently implore you to make eye contact.

Your eyes are conveniently elsewhere.

Cold eyes, bitchy eyes.

Concrete stares.