distance

Last night, joining them for dinner, I felt like the odd woman out. Felt a million miles away. It was strange, having been the lynchpin these months, linking us all together, feeling the light shine down. Not tonight. Tonight I wanted to excuse myself, take back my yes for the dinner invite, retreat back into the car and head east on Pleasant Street back to the house on Emily Lane or maybe pass the turnoff altogether, head up north instead, Burlington, to visit a friend who said I was always welcome when I wanted to get outta Dodge, I could have gone there, or the other way, onto Rt. 9 to 91 South and then and maybe even as far as New Jersey, you never know, I could have gone there, avoided the liminal unease of the evening, the restaurant too loud, the drinks not strong enough, the service turtle-slow, everything drawn out and diluted, a distant cousin of the revelry and poignancy of late fall and the close-knit warmth of early winter. It's strange how the body retreats, how the skin grows cold to the touch, how that which charmed and titillated now underwhelms and irritates, how the nuanced flirtations of lovers devolve into an awkward tangle of clinking glasses that toast to two different, unspoken futures. This irony of proximity, the scant inches on the table separating hand from hand, like neighbor countries keeping different currencies, speaking different languages, eyeing their precious, impermeable borders.