Everyone Around Us is in Love

Illustration by Emily Hua.

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I mull about it over dinner,

in a place off the 605 stamped with our footprints

and a menu I only need to skim through before remembering your order.

The faces of our friends who have recently gotten together pair up in my head 

like mahjong tile couples. It’s a set I’m not used to playing. Across the table,

your lukewarm glass of water waits in the same spot. Even in Spring, 

I can’t help but feel like nothing in my life changes these days.

I’m still afraid of hummingbirds, 

but fascinated by the rapid flutter of their wings. 

My parents still bicker on Saturdays over going out or staying in.

My fork taps the table once, twice, until the question spills out of me: 

Do you think we’ll break up? 

It sends you tightening like a fist. There’s a miserable lump in my throat and 

the moment is suspended in foggy aspic. 

But our emotions are not proper instruments to measure what exists.  

Like fruits that forget their own seeds, certain and deep within them. 

A passerby may see the gentle silence between us

and not think twice; we shouldn’t either. 

The soft flesh of your face unfurls, and your palm stretches 

out for me to hold. When you finally speak, your voice is as solid 

and true as the muffled thud of a mahjong tile being unveiled on the table. 

Long-awaited, and ending the worry of it all. 

On the way home I think back to a few years ago and us standing under a small blanket,

swaddled by the fuschia night of Long Beach. It was then that I had finally said 

I think I like you too. My voice had gone temporarily crooked, 

like stickers I once placed and picked off a journal entry

written about the time I first made you laugh. The collection of small belongings

I left in your car grew from those unsuspecting moments. 

I keep learning that love is forever jostling. Even now 

when it rains, I think of us running 

towards the foglights we accidentally left on

and a 90s song I still play that will have you looking towards

your left. White teeth shine towards me and then, 

we sing together against the cold.