No Direction Home by Riya Sharma
No direction home
We were in my favorite record shop
and a Bob Dylan classic was playing
when you said,
I’m like that song you knew you’d like
before even hearing it.
We later put neon bands around our
wrists, attended crowded concerts,
consumed free slurpies and danced
to the bands we didn’t know the name of.
You pretended to like my dance moves
and I acted like I didn’t notice your eyes
on me the whole time.
We grabbed hamburgers and argued
if human misery were to take up space
would this world be big enough to store it.
Spoiler alert, it won’t.
You practically had to kiss me when I
couldn’t stop blabbering about how
holding a paintbrush in-between your
fingers felt more beautiful than holding
a half-lit Marlboro.
I’m glad I noticed that nicotine patch
on your left arm.
Your eyes resemble one of the many
marbles I owned as a child.
Maybe that’s why my mom thinks I’m
obsessed with you.
We spent the rest of the night quoting Tolstoy
and Dostoevsky
under a streetlight that kept flickering
like it’s doing that
on purpose.
But neither of us were in a hurry, were we?
That record shop at the end of the street
has been shut down
and I’m too old for concerts now.
Your Instagram feed with your lover
is so much prettier than the old
Polaroids I have of us stored in the attic.
How could I have ruined something that
was so meant to be.
Maybe even the best of songs
ultimately just end.
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