It’s not cheating Claudette

He’s married now and I’m okay with that

I’m not the evil type of ex.

I scroll through his Instagram and think that together they look wise

Just a little bit older than I.

And maybe that’s the reason behind why there was never a you and an I.

I was still in my twenties when we met.

Her name is something like claudette.

She’s closer to your age and she’d already gotten you to wear a flower in your suit jacket pocket.

Your picture is the one hung around her neck in a golden locket.

Your mother’s diamond band is now sitting on her finger.

Hands around her waist the photograph together you linger.

He’s got a car now and place of his reached all those married man milestones.

The ones that with me he postponed.

And I wonder if together it all should have been ours.

Wait a moment, that voice in the back of my throat sounds a bit dryer.

I need a drink to sound a little less sour.

Claudette, yeah that’s her name, that’s what I see in your instagram post.

She should get a medal I would have never been able to get you to wear that couture.

I’m not the evil type of Ex.

I’m the type of ex that he can still run into on the street.

Without the meeting being too bittersweet.

On the cobble stone ones, with the red booth across and the black lamps that form a line over the bridge. The one’s where we used to kiss.

They’re he’ll introduce me to his new wife.

Say I’m an old friend; someone from the past.

We’ll passively discuss our professional life.

I’ll stand and smile and ask if he still likes that ice cream they used to sell on the street where 1st and 3rd crash.

He’ll say he hasn’t had that in years.

That he prefers to indulge in beers.

That he didn’t even know it still existed.

And I’ll recognize I’ve been put in my place, the details of his life I’ve been prohibited.

That him was the old one, and I don’t know the new him.

That’s a truth that’s a bit grim.

Once he was my best friend.

Now we’re stranger’s he’s just a guy I’ll use to know, in the end.

And then I’ll grab the hand of the man I’ll call boyfriend.

And together they’ll greet.

Two men who once had me.

They talk of there tales

To him he’ll quietly challenge.

He’ll ask me if with him I’m really happy?

Does it matter?

The men will talk.

While us women look at each other in a sort of denial.

We aren’t friend or enemies, we know we’re somehow connected through the wires.

In a way we’re family for the man between us together we’ve lived the same life.

Her in reality.

Me in the 3-D virtual simulations of sim’s village’s that together we constructed.

I think we will both always think it could have been us.

Not in regret.

Just in fact.

We talk and then you go forward and I go my way after adhering to this social contract.

My new man’s hand I’ll grip a little harder.

I took everyone’s advice.

He’s a lot younger than you.

But he lacks that sort of maturity that you always had.

I’m not saying I regret it.

It’s just a fact.

My neck I hold a little higher.

Trying to tell myself not look back.

Alas, I’m weak.

Over my man’s arm I look back.

He wasn’t any stronger.

His hands are wrapped around her back.

But his eyes were glued to the nape of my neck.

There are flicks of grey in his hair, and creases in the corners of his eyes as he smiles at me goodbye.

We don’t get a second chance and that’s alright.

We’ve made our choices.

It’s our plight.

So we’ll stick with it, because to people like us vows mean something.

We get married, buy houses, make babies, and live our lives in denial.

We’re happy; in this version of our life portrayal.

We don’t always think one one another.

Only on the days we do…hmm.

In a few years we’ll flock in the same friend circles.

Suddenly in full control of our past urges.

Then we’re pressing that blue follow button following each other on instagram.

When were together I’ll no longer need to down two capsules of diazepam.

You aren’t really an ex anymore.

Your are a friend.

You aren’t a stranger.

And sometimes I wonder if in that there’s danger.

But then again our spouse are best friends.

Next thing we know where in your wife’s dining room eating pork roast with wine, how very adult.

I don’t think we would have ever believed this to be our result.

We make fun over the fact that you and I used to be a we.

I’ll fake a gag when it’s brought up.

But I catch you cutting your eyes at me when we laugh.

You look at me and not your wife.

But she doesn’t notice that.

Which is funny because she was the one who was supposed to be older and wiser.

That’s why in the end you choose her.

Claudette.

You’ll have a son and I’ll have a daughter.

We’ll raise them to be best friends.

You and I will dream about them getting together.

It’s a stupid dream really.

Just us trying through them to live vicariously through.

See I’ve never been the jealous kind of Ex.

At your wedding I danced.

You kissed my cheek at mine and offered a toast and that wasn’t just by circumstance.

All these years later the summer of us ;was just that.

Now, us four sit best of friends in your winter flat.

You and I won’t ever touch.

Or look at each other with lust, of that I can’t begrudge.

But when were laughing I know it’s to me you look.

Not Claudette.

And every Sunday you’ll stand at that ice cream stand where you said you never went.

You grab ice cream for two.

I know this place you often frequent.

I know now you never really became a stranger.

Falling in love with you of that I’ll always be in danger.

Our lives haven’t been the greatest.

But neither have then been the worst.

We won’t ever know if we would have made it in reality.

I was in my twenties.

And you were in your late thirties.

Maybe it was best this way

Us always loving each other, but never being able to call you and I; ours.

We were never the jealous Ex’s.

You’re just my best friend.

And that’s how I know we were really the best of lovers.

Because even without the perks of love.

Each other we’ve always thought the world of.

So let’s sit pretending were only in brotherly love.

You with your wife.

Me with my husband.

Our kids on our laps.

Eating off our plates, the scraps.

Us pretending to sip the wine we chug.

Out of our coffee mugs.

Let‘s finish out this life as the best of friends.

And hope parts of our lives have been reincarnated in the eyes of my daughter and your son.

Even this young I can kind of see a spark.

But maybe it’s just me dreaming in the idea that we could be if they just loved one another.