What hurts you?

It’s the way you ask this as though it were a confessional, a moment between two souls, not people.

So, I turn and smile and you shake your head then shrug your shoulders.

“You always smile when you are angry, or when you want to break down and cry, why is that?”

“Reflex action,” I say and we laugh.

It’s almost seven o’clock and you should be leaving but I know you do not want to, because you inch closer, soaking in every word I say, hanging by a thread of hope…that maybe just maybe, I may choose to let you see me.

“What hurts you?”

I almost say “the little unexpected things,” but we both know it’s the “failed expectations” that hurt the most, so I sip my coffee, fold my legs and you say “you should try yoga.”

I say “I have commitment issues, so no yoga for me,” and you laugh because it’s you who said I run even when no one is chasing me.

What do I know of pain? Enough.

So, we sit and talk about books and in the spaces in between our thoughts, I know that your pain is akin to mine, but miles away from the depth of it.