Harvard Yard

I find myself around the corner from a bar
in which we ate our last meal and drank our
last drink together. It's attached to a hotel
with a kind of, to me, high end ambiance,
the people in there dressed their parts- suits,
techies, academics- overdone social laughter,
awkwardness excused by high net worth.

It's still a place I'd never choose to stay
for very long on my own, but it was a gift,
and with you in those days, anywhere
was good.

But not that night,
despite the fact we were there to celebrate,
everything fell short, nothing felt natural, and the
fucking winner's circle ambiance oppressed me.

There's no nostalgia here for me. No yearn to return.
But I can clearly see, retrospectively,
you behaving dutifully
while wanting to be elsewhere
and the very next day,
you were.

The last memory I have of your face is you rolling your eyes.
Someday, maybe I'll thank you for that.