Some days
while lying in bed
I think of things that might’ve been.
I wonder how life’s lines would be laid
if
I had taken you back
that fourth time.

When you came up to me
in the dining commons
one month after
those three Fall months where you broke my heart
three full times
and explained that you needed a friend
a friend like me
someone who had understood you
had loved you
had appreciated you
in a way that your new boyfriend didn’t,
and asked me to be that friend,
I was dead quiet
as I considered.

For a moment,
I wanted to be there for you
to hold you like I’d done so recently
to comfort you and ensure that you slept well
and awoke happy.
I thought about how I had missed you as a friend
and that
if we opened up communication,
what else might eventually be opened.

If I had welcomed you back,
I suspect,
we would have been kissing in a week
and rutting in two.
Your boyfriend would be out of the picture in three
and, if history served,
I’d be kicked back to the curb in four.

Perhaps nothing else would be different
and you would simply have another notch
on your belt
while I had another excuse to get you.
Perhaps we would have had that extra month
or maybe we would have made it
that fourth time
and still be together today.

Maybe I shouldn’t have told you to get lost
that brunch in the dining commons.
Sometimes I think about it
In bed
but then I get up.