You

I almost ran straight into you today. At first I didn't recognise you, you've changed your hair, its blonde now like that singer from that band that did the song 'Don't Speak'. You had your nose buried so far in your book you almost tripped on the chasm like crack in the surly grey pavement. Your eyes didn't even rise from the book for more than the few seconds it took you to say the expected pre-emptive polite sorry before you went back to your book and resumed greedily soaking up the words.

But those three heart stopping seconds is all it took. It doesn’t matter that it’s been five years; I would recognise those hauntingly pale green eyes anywhere.

Long after you passed me I still couldn’t move. My feet were cemented to the ground, heart jolting in my chest as I debated whether you’d seen me or not. Braving a look back I watched as you barely dodged more people in the street but realised that you hadn’t seen anyone. You hadn’t seen anything except the small black printed letters on the page. I could hardly believe it. We’d been so close, could have breathed the same breath and yet I had remained as invisible to you as the atmosphere around us.

You always had a talent for blocking out the world.

I watched your blonde hair sway in the wind as you continued up the road until even the neon pink of your backpack faded from view.

When I returned to the store Lesley frowned at me concerned.

“You look like you've seen a ghost.” She said.

And I wanted to tell her that I had. That outside on the street I had seen my Marley and it had looked right through me as if I were the spectre.