What She Was Doing Instead

We're supposed to be connecting.

That's what the dating app said,

that's what she agreed to, that's what I

showed up for on a Thursday at a bar

where the lighting is forgiving

and everyone is half-focus anyway.

She's listening to me talk—

or the part of her that's here is listening.

The rest of her is elsewhere,

tracing a finger through the condensation

on her glass, drawing a line through the beads

of water, making a path she immediately

smudges away.

I know what this is.

I know what it means when someone

looks at anything but your face.

She's drawing something. A line. A way out.

She's not here. She's in the moisture

on the glass, in the cold ring it's leaving

on the bar, in the moment right before

she smudges it away.

I keep talking. It's easier than stopping.

I tell her about my job, my apartment,

the thing I've been trying to work on,

as if these details matter, as if they're

the kind of thing that makes someone stay.

Her finger moves through the water again.

Same line. Same smudge.

She's practicing something. An exit.

A way to leave that doesn't require words.

When she looks at me, her eyes are apologetic

in a way that makes it worse.

She's not angry. She's just not here.

And she's sorry I can't see it.

The condensation is melting. The line

is disappearing. By the time she looks away,

there's nothing left but the cold ring,

and me, still talking, still trying

to make sense of something that ended

before it started.

She reaches for her glass again.

Not to drink. To touch the water.

To draw the line.

To practice leaving.