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:
which shoes you’d rock in wintertime,
which colour of hairpins you’d show off to me,
how opaque your walnut irises,
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.