I said it as a joke—
but we breathed it in, like smoke.
We keep staring at each other, weird,
and I pretend
a little hope didn’t just appear.
They were laughing
where the times went,
boarding-school miscreants,
when you glanced at me
and it dashed in your eyes,
and something simmered
down our invisible tie.
But I would take
a heartbeat of confusion
over disillusion—
on the pulse of something survived,
then nothing alive.
On the brink of something breaking,
then aimlessly waiting—
must you put your arm around her?
we could’ve just kept it awkward.