ex

oh hello.

it is your birthday again.

every year it catches me by surprise. yet i expect it.

every year i wonder what you are doing. and i hate it.

you are married now, and today i wondered how you would celebrate your birthday. i wonder what she looks like, mostly. i wonder if you settled, and if you would even let me believe that. i would like to think that you didn't settle, that you found someone who matches you, like i did.

you told me that you married her because you wanted to feel secure. i should have told you that marriage doesn't buy you that, but by then it was already too late. you told me you weren't ready to get married until you were 27, a veiled jab to remind me of how you supposedly proposed when you stuttered out, "if you were single, would you marry me?"

a stutter that i never answered.

i know we weren't meant to be together, and i harbor no regrets, no feelings, for you.

i never want to be with you.

and yet i keep wondering.