Sitting alone, in a cafe

Dear Sam,

It’s been some time since we last spoke.

Things have changed, for better and for worse.

I work all the time, so I’m no longer broke,

But living in this town is sometimes a curse.

•

I have friends, I have family—I have love—

I have a job I’m passionate about.

I don’t have much but I have enough,

But I’m left with this nagging doubt.

•

Should I have left and gone with you?

Traded stability for rootless uncertainty?

Left the comforting old for something new,

And lived a life of volatility?

•

I know everyone here, and everyone knows me.

Some people still ask if I’m okay.

In towns like this there’s no privacy,

My entire life is on display.

•

This gets exhausting; I know you know.


You were sick of it even when you were young.

While I loved a life that was calm and slow,

The taste of adventure was on the tip of your tongue.

•

I often wonder where you are now,

On a mountain, in a jungle, or in a gutter.

I think of you more than time should allow,

And how you sent my stomach aflutter.

•

I wasn’t ready to say goodbye

To everything and everyone I’d ever known.

I wasn’t rootless like you and ready to fly

Away and be (almost) on my own.

•

I thought I could persuade you to stay;

You thought you could convince me to leave.

Nothing could change us, and in a way,

We both left a life to grieve.

•

I should go now, but I wanted to write

To tell you—I don’t know what.

That sometimes I am filled of spite,

That you left, and now that door is shut.

•

Part of me is free, and part never will be,

Locked in the time that was just us.


I never wanted to leave, but now I am ready,

Finally, I think, to leave the life I once loved.

•

All of my love,

With love,

Love,

Fin

•

P.S.

This letter will never reach you,

Because I don’t know where you are.

It will sit with remnants of the life I once knew—

A ticket stub, a lipstick, the butt of a cigar.