I was standing outside the apartment lobby waiting for a lover to get the door as I heard the garage door open and looked to my left, locking eyes with an old flame for a second before he continued to drive away. Something about that shook me to my core, not because there were still emotions tied to this person, but the idea of the input/output system of people in my life and his life, and anyone’s life. one goes in, the other goes out, and one day you don’t say hi to each other anymore. I’ve known it’s a very simple truth and not worth crying about, but the reality of it had never locked eyes with me like that. every loss leads to a gain which fades into a loss which leads to a gain and so forth. I stood out there alone for what felt like the longest time, being still as people came and went. The feeling was dark and ghostly, coming to terms with the fact that I was still and everything would always be moving to me until it would move through me. The sky was white above me and I waited outside until I caught the door when someone else left the apartment building. My current lover never came down to let me in. I brought dessert and we fought all night. At 2am I cried under fancy linen sheets on the right side of his bed and he looked at me, and when I saw his eyes I could see it happening. He asked if I was crying and I could see that moment when it all fades. I could see his eyes start to look through me and feel myself start to lose whatever fictional permanence I convinced myself of. I wasn’t sad about a breakup or a heartbreak but by the observation of the cyclical nature of how people enter and exit another’s life, and how I'm so addicted to it. He held my gaze for a minute until he broke the silence that came with it, by saying “I just don’t get you”. He got up from bed and went to his desk to check the news. I turned and faced the window, wishing there was something other than an empty courtyard with fake grass on the other side, and knowing that you can’t get what was never there to begin with.