a smile

It begins with a smile.
Not the kind tossed across rooms like coins,
but one that lingers,
heavy with the promise of nothing
and the pull of everything.

He has not spoken.
Still, she imagines the weight of his head
in her lap,
fingertips learning him slowly,
not to change,
only to remember.

She maps him in silence,
temple to jaw,
lip to shadow,
sketching softness into memory
before time has the chance
to steal it.

Around them,
the bar hums with other lives.
Glass meets glass,
laughter rises and disappears.
But the moment folds in on itself.
He is all she sees.

She does not ask for his name.
What she wants
cannot be said aloud.
She wants the curve of his smile
when no one is watching,
the way his eyes quiet
once they stop searching
for shelter.

She is already tucking him away
into the folds of a night
that may never return,
a single thread
she will keep pulling
long after it frays.

She watches him watching her
as if the silence between them
has already chosen them both.
The song playing becomes
the sound of now.

Only this night.
Maybe another.
Him and her,
brief as breath,
real as flame.

And it all begins
with a smile
at the bar.