One Friday

we sit across from each other at that café-hotspot on Willis Street
I order granola, You, eggs on toast.
nice and simple, like the long black. I order a half strength of the same 
just to be different

but also because I don’t want to be difficult
						& ask if I can pretty please have a half
						strength oat milk flat white.
too many syllables, You see.

It is Friday morning, 8.06 am
I woke up in a bustle of thoughts
						not unusual for me, as You know.

I was starting to think about how I should ask for consent before I vent

						before I divulge all that’s going on
						in my inner monologue that’s all moving
						pictures & scattered letters that I trace 
						repetitively along that fleshy part of my 
						hand between my thumb and forefinger.
yeah. 

but then I thought, idly, amongst many other things
that You might not ask me what’s on my mind
because of my tendency to let all spill out anyway.

						would You even be used to
						my silence?
but then You ask me. 
You say					‘would you like to talk about it?’

and I smile to myself, expressing the very thought I’d had in the last fourteen lines.
we talk (I talk) & You listen
we talk (You talk) & I listen

It’s 8.30 am and I need to go to work
You, to the library.

the sun is out today 
the air, crisp.
we hold onto each other a few moments
I watch You walk away			& You turn your head
         									         & You smile.