Check, Please

They sat quietly in the restaurant booth
under the sterile fluorescent lights,
waiting for the check.

“Sometimes crying is like throwing up.”

“What?”

“Sometimes crying is like throwing up.”
her eyes wandered somewhere out the window,
as if searching for something.
“You know…” she stabbed at the ice in her glass.
There was no soda left,
just a little water collected at the bottom
beneath the ice.
She looked intently into his face.
“It’s like, you stare and stare
at the toilet bowl, and you have to puke,
and you know you have to,
but you just can’t make yourself.
And if you can’t puke, you can’t feel better.

"Crying is the same way.
You’re sitting there,
staring at nothing,
and you know if you cry you’ll feel better,
but you just can’t.
No matter how much you remind yourself
of how bad things have gotten,
you can’t cry. And if you can’t cry,
you can’t feel better.”

His expression remained blank, his gaze
directed elsewhere, intense silence
radiated from his side of the table.
Her eyes wandered back to the ice in her glass.
“I don’t know. Never mind.”

He would not look at her.
“You need to lighten up.”

She sighed.
“What do you want to do after dinner?”

“I don’t know,” he said.
He looked at his watch.