Melissa Allen

Crazy Talk

We’ve broken up for the third and final time but since my new boyfriend is a thousand miles away and it’s summertime and you have that sports car to drive us around in and we’re in love, we still spend quite a bit of time together.

I don’t seriously consider taking you back, though. Until one sunny afternoon in my parents’ backyard, when, as usual, we’re standing very close together, not bothering to talk much. All of a sudden, as if you’ve just seen a vision, you say, “You know, in twenty years we’ll run into each other walking down the street and we won’t be able to resist throwing ourselves into each other’s arms.”

But then you laugh, like it’s a joke—so I do too.

Twenty years later I am married to the new boyfriend and you are the one who’s a thousand miles away, married to someone else. Fortunately we have never actually seen each other walking down the street.

autumn deepens
before I hit send
I delete love