Work Text:
I was at that corner store you work at yesterday—where I first saw you. You weren't there, but I wasn't looking for you, so it shouldn't have mattered to me.
I'm never looking—maybe passively hoping.
I always think that, when I feel my heart ache and my stomach drop—as if my life wasn't already full of sudden dread.
Maybe if I could just catch a glimpse it would satiate my need for the day. My need to observe, to fantasize, to dream.
Some things become part of your routine—brushing your teeth, keeping an eye over your shoulder—but my routine recently has had a bit of a disruption. A disruption of my own doing that'll run me into the dirt faster than I could ever confess my love to a stranger, but even knowing that I walk from one end of the block to the other.
When a man expects death, many things run through his mind: the things he never got to do, the things he'll never get to try.
Ah, love. A love like mama and papa's maybe—what I could have had. Maybe with you.
If only I had lost enough screws, huh?
To have you—to take you—in this life would be cruel. Watching from afar gives me the solace I need.
It's funny, really. How I don't know your name, how old you are, where you went to school—but I find comfort in not knowing. You could be anybody, but for a few minutes out of the day, you get to be mine.
You rotate on a pedestal in my mind's eye, like a photo tucked into some blue-collars breast pocket, and I imagine.
I imagine who we might have been together.
Maybe circling back for one more lap around the block isn't such a bad idea. Just to stop by, just to make sure nobody is giving your business any trouble.
Just to watch.