she asked where i saw myself in the next five years

i didn’t answer just stared at the fish in the aquarium

she repeated her question

i turned to her and asked why a supposedly fancy establishment like this would have such cheap fish in the tank, don’t you think they would have sprung for some pretty and rare tropical fish

she stared at me

it isn’t like they would have to maintain the tank themselves, just hire a guy to make sure the water is clean and the fish are healthy and if not just start over

she asked why i avoided the question

i don’t know if i’ll make it through the year

she rolled her eyes and went back to the menu

the waiter came back with our drinks, her brown sugar swill and my water with no lemon

she looked at me over the menu and i told him we would need more time

as he walked away she turned towards the fish tank, the new source of my ire

she remarked she thinks it looks pretty

pretty gaudy, this entire place is a temple to cutting corners whole trying to maintain an aesthetic of nouveau rich, might as well have sawdust on the ground and a trough to piss on over in the corner

i was in a mood and it was evident this night was not going to go as either of us had hoped

i didn’t know what i hoped for the night, something salvageable from the routine we had fallen into as of late i suppose

she and i had hit that rut where it is affection that keeps us going past the expiration date

we just kept turning the thermostat down in hopes the cold would abate the integral rot from spoiling it from the outside in

ignoring the black fluids that leaked whenever one of us prodded too deeply

she bit her lip and asked where i saw us in five years

i just raised an eyebrow and went on about the fucking fish

this was not the time nor the place for that but it never was even though it most assuredly was long past due

her eyes seemed glassy and i realized she needed me to reassure her that it was all fine, that it wasn’t intrinsically broken beyond repair, that i wasn’t aware her friend was another guy that had fallen into the role i used to play with such finesse

a role i no longer felt the same zest for

where did it all go wrong

i knew we had turned a corner when she was always using the bathroom with the door open

we had crossed the star crossed lovers part of the ride into the routine of friends that occasionally have sex

i love you, i did, but where do you see us in five years

the tears fell and the waiter returned and stood expectantly while i sat in between the beginning or end of a chapter of a book i had read so many times in the past that the dogeared pages were yellowed like the bones in a sarcophogus and i wasn’t even looking from top to bottom of the page

i could just pick it up from anywhere and catch the gist of what was happening by rote memorization

and maybe that wasn’t good enough for either of us anymore

maybe we deserved better

her phone buzzed and she instinctively went to it, to him, to the him that was waiting for me to stop being the him in his way

if only i would just fade into the obscurity of wasted years and bitter memories

and i yelled at the waiter for one more fucking minute as the carnival won goldfish swam in the dirty water of a poorly lit cage in a poorly decorated restaurant where everything fell apart over expensive haute cuisine made by underpaid and under challenged chefs stuck in the same goddamned rut as all the bored diners in all the piss poor places on this shit storm of a planet

she got up and left mid rant

i saw and it just fueled my anger

and then i woke with a start in my empty room where she hadn’t been for over a year

staring at the same ceiling for the billionth time wondering if the grand design had been to make her leave

where do you see yourself in five years

probably right fucking here