Agony

The street was crowded, usual for this part of town. Usual for this segment of my life.

People surrounded me, elbows rubbing and bags brushing against backs as we waited for the signal to turn, so we could all cross the street in the herd of animals we were. What more to life was there now than getting places? To get there along with everyone else in the same rush, the fear of not getting there on time the greatest motivator of all. But where were we all trying to go? And what the hell would we do once we got there?

As far as I knew, I hadn’t a clue where I was going. I was taking it day by day, hour by hour. Breath by breath. It was the only thing I could do. It was what my life had been reduced to.

Nothing gold can stay.

And supposedly I’d had my fair share of treasure.

My toes hung over the curb, maybe an inch sticking out. No risk. People were behind me, crowding. The walk signal was taking an exceedingly long time to turn, the white man everyone wanted to see eluding us all. The red hand was all we got to stare at, watching as eventually it burned to stare at it for so long. And I knew everyone was looking at the same thing I was. There was nothing else to see.

After standing on the same street corner, day after day, like all of us did, there were only so many things to stare at. So many different sights that could be seen and drunk in before it all became memorized and familiar. Did humans grow tired of the familiar? Or did we strive to never find the unknown?

I can say I never wanted to venture into the unknown. I was happy where I was, who I was with. The unknown was forced upon me, presenting itself only feet away from me. There was no where to go but forward after that. Trembling and fearful, I braved on. And look where it got me. Standing on a street corner with the other schmucks living the same life I was. Monotonous and robotic, we are not humans. We breath work and eat our relationships.

Standing on the street corner with everyone else, with the rest of the familiar, I saw something new. Someone different.

And he was known. He was as familiar as the back of my hand.

And if my hand had been chopped off and then presented again to me five years later, I would feel just the same as I do now while I stared at him.

My god, how you’ve changed, were about the only words running through my head. And the words were true. How his skin was different. His hair. His body. His everything. He was not the same.

And yet I found myself loving him just the same as I had the last time I’d seen him. Five years ago. Five years changes a person.

Why was this light taking so damn long?!

He was standing the same way I was, almost a mirror image except diagonally across from me. Hands in pockets, toes hanging over the curb, just by an inch. I watched as his eyes drifted. This wasn’t his familiar.

Did, did he see me?

A smile had overtaken his face, his nose reddening and his eyes glassing over. A hand traveled from his pocket to his head, smoothing back his now-brown hair, brushing through it and wiping away what might have been a stray tear.

I found my own eyes glassing, watering to the point where Oliver became fragmented. It had been so long. And here I was, this new person that could hardly remember what a life full of freedom was like, even if that life had only been five years ago. And Oliver, he’d never, ever stop living free.

We were so different; so much older and changed. We were not the same people we were when we were eighteen.

Was the love still there though? Had that love never changed, never aged? In my heart it hadn’t. But when the day came that Oliver told me we were over, I had assumed our love died in his heart. That it left just like a wish on a dandelion disappeared with the wind.

Tears ran down my face. This is the closest I had been to him since the day we called it quits. And we were still so far apart. Yet he looked pensive, smiling and tearing up. Had he wanted to see me all those years, too? Sudden questions invaded my mind at the speed of light; things I hadn’t thought of asking myself before, because I had been mildly used to the life I’d fallen into now. I wondered why we never came into contact again. I wondered if he had wanted to call, to apologize, to anything.

I would have taken anything.

The light changed. The little white man I had been waiting for came, and I felt like he held my life in his arms.

Oliver took a step off the curb. I walked towards him, diagonally veering towards him. My heart burned and my muscles ached in those few short steps. This was so painful. It had been so long.