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"post-getting ghosted" by ongoing vision

CW: vomiting



The seat on window view was left empty

by a man, coeval as me, moved to the

middle row and kissed a woman who sat alone.

I was slightly tipsy— thanks to cheap wine—

unconsciously spoke out loud,

Never thought

I’d witness people falling in love on a plane.

The woman— I swore, she looked like a descendant

of a Greek deity— chirpily replied,

We were a couple actually, we fought

days before but now we miss each other.

I laughed boisterously as I took

last bite of a dull chocolate croissant

while nodding my head, hoping they caught my

congratulatory gesture and shifted my back,

away from the couple, avoiding the potentially

teeth-rotting sweetness of the scene.

Forty thousand feet above the sea, somewhere

over the Pacific Ocean, I gazed out the window—

tried to digest the aftermath of this first

solo trip— and also the stupid chocolate croissant—

thought of how I could’ve had the same sick-to-the-stomach

kind of love story, identical to the couple right beside me.

Last Tuesday, as I pushed a luggage trolley with

a jammed wheel, I wondered:

  1. which shoes you’d rock in wintertime,

  2. which colour of hairpins you’d show off to me,

  3. how opaque your walnut irises,

  4. taste of cherry Chapstick on your lips.

Not once did I think of my actual itinerary for a conference

I got an invitation from.

Fuck all of that as long as I have you,

I thought.

The last day, the day we were supposed to meet, I chose the table spot where

moonlight glowed on the dainty rusted wood. Then a waiter came with your note.

I have something to do. Sorry.

And the moment I went back to my hotel,

you blocked my phone number.

I laughed boisterously, just like tonight,

hunched my back over the toilet bowl.

We are(?) a couple, we did fight, but

do you miss me like I miss you?


Fuck, I need to throw up the damn chocolate croissant.


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