Meeting your ex for the first time in over a year.

Meeting your ex for the first time in over a year is a little like sex - in that you’re all nervous for it to happen and you put on some nice clothes and get all fancy and maybe even dab on a little cologne - you know, the warehouse brand because you aren’t that fancy - and you text a friend to get all pumped up and listen to songs that make you feel confident on the walk to the meet up, because really, you just want to be feeling anything other than nervous.
But then you get there and they text that they’ll be late. So you stand there awkwardly, and freak out messaging your mate who's like why are you doing this to yourself, and you’re all like, I have no idea, and the conversation loops in circles as you get sucked into a whirlpool of emotions. Then your phone buzz’s, and you look down, and she’s here, and you have to go find her.

Meeting your ex for the first time in over a year is a little like ice cream melting into your hand just before an important business meeting - in that you’re suddenly looking all unprepared and ringing your hands together again and again and again.
Your eyes refuse to collect on theirs. so you look down at your palms and remember when they used to fit together so kindly.
You try to remember all those novel-length conversations as you search her face for any remnants of the past. But you don’t find it. You only find out that maybe, maybe, you were writing a different novel. Maybe hers stopped early and you kept yours going solely by imagination. That you had painted a portrait in your mind of someone who didn’t really exist. That it was more fun to imagine.
Meeting your ex for the first time in a year is a little like opening an old book which you thought you remembered, only to find that the parts you thought you knew had been rubbed out. With new text stamped in place. And dust so thick it could now be powdered over the places where your names used to link together so perfectly on the pages, and the history that was once so rich now has water damage.
A friend once told you that if you write one poem about a person you love them, and if you write ten poems you love poetry. And you think back to all the drafts which had her name crossed out and wonder if maybe it wasn’t her that you loved after all.

Maybe it was the unrequited love.
Maybe it was the distance that let you draw your own conclusions and maybe you weren’t in love with her but the idea of love and maybe you were just in desperate search for a muse or maybe you just fell too far into being a hopeless romantic.
Meeting your ex for the first time in a year is like all your friends telling you not to, but knowing inherently it’s the right thing to do.
Meeting your ex for the first time in a year is like walking into a burning building with nothing but a bottle of mountain dew.
Meeting your ex for the first time in a year is like catching closure, not feelings.

(Originally published in Mayhem Literary Journal 2020, p. 216. )
(Designed to be spoken out loud as a performance poem)