You don’t need to love me hard and fast or meaningful and slow, you don’t need to love me at all. I feel your presence thousands of miles away and spend evenings constructing stories in my mind of an alternate reality where our hearts beat in time and our toes curl together underneath blankets in my Stoke Newington apartment.

You don’t need to pretend you know my history; I’ll do the same for you. Just know that late nights on the Bowery could be warmer and cooler and a lot more exciting with you next to me. You don’t have to kiss me underneath the New York skyline, signing stars with each other’s names and freeze-framing this moment for decades later when we pass each other in Clissold Park and don’t recognize each other anymore.

The Bowery keeps secrets both big and small, and ours never existed anyway. 

Flash fiction by Kristyn Potter