There is no hello.
No goodbye.
Because this isn’t really a love story that took place at the back of a bar.
It’s just at the back of a bar.
You’re sat at a smoking area. You know how this looks. A half-lit cigarette. A bottle of beer frozen on your hands. No company. You see nothing but dusty paintings hang unappreciated—like you. You exchange words with other smokers that come and just eventually leave you.
Can I have a light? Oh, sure, give me a second. Oh, thank you. Yeah.
A nod. A smile.
You’ve said and heard these words forever on loop you can repeat anytime, anywhere, but they don’t really tell you anything.
It’s just at the back of a bar. You know this. A space that’s too crowded, but always has a room for one more, another light, another filter. A place too tight, too close, you’d fall on a stranger’s shoulder. Share the same smoke. Breathe the same air. A crowd at a rundown bench that will always feel full. Just smokers share a wordless conversation under one’s silent drag and puff.
The ghost, they haunt you.
You hear about a stranger’s day. A word or two that may or may never stay with you. You hear their story.
He asks, are you sure this is just about work?
She nods, but she won’t answer.
You wait. You listen.
We talked about this last time, remember? She eventually blurts out. Her lips a frown. Her eyes full. She speaks nothing but questions.
Like she did, he nods, but he won’t answer.
You know how this feels. It’s between wanting to say something, the one that makes it or breaks it, or wanting to just take a swig and never speak it.
And caught in the middle, cigarette filters discarded like a dead bonfire—snuffed like you.
When you look away, you hear her speak his name. A name that sounds like a question, but there’s no answer.
When they leave, you realize that it’s just one of those stories you’ll never know the closure to, find the answers to. And so you tell yourself, maybe it’s really just about work.
Because this isn’t really a love story that took place at the back of a bar. There’s just a random stranger next to you, your heads balter to the noise. Your ears searching for words, searching for a conversation.
You hear bottles clinking.
Laughter thrown in between the clatter and the chatter from a distance.
The room is violet.
The words are blue.
You hear the waiter casually asks, one more?
Pale Pilsen.
San Mig Light.
Another laughter.
Make that two.
You hear strangers ask, table for one.
Table for two.
They smile but not to you. Still, bottles forever clinking in your head and conversations you’ll never get.
You hear acoustic love songs caught in the middle of it all, songs after songs you could sing along and balter to your own pity. Your fingers that smell nicotine, they tell your secrets. The coldness against the bottle—frozen like you.
Maybe you’re just alone and you need the music to company your own loneliness. But maybe you’re not really lonely, maybe you just want the music. Or maybe you just want to be alone, you just don’t want these nameless people.
But still, when new faces find the place that seems to be a broken record forever on loop at the rush hour, you look up.
You always look up.
Then take a swig, a couple.
Dart a look around, drag on that cigarette.
Then pull your eyes from the crowd. And while the bitter dregs sit on your tongue, you realize that no matter how long you stare and wait, no one’s coming for you. No one’s coming to save you. Your eyes will always be searching, scanning stranger’s faces lost to their own. And you’ll always pull back, your hopes burning close to the filter until it’s dead and discarded—snuffed like you.
So you take another swig, nurse, maybe double take.
You don’t dart, you just light another cigarette.
And there at the back of a bar, a smoking area, you listen to the music, songs in a set list that all sound the same like faces in the crowd that will remain strangers. People come. But more people go, until all that’s left are the people killing the time till the clock strikes the city sleeps.
Alone, but not lonely.
And then in the corner of your eye, despite all, you catch a stare you can’t pull back. It’s keeping you. It’s pulling you. You lock eyes until the chorus ends, until the clinking and the clatter and the violet come rushing to your chest. You don’t share a smile, a hint. You just share this unspoken story in between glances that begged for its own.
It’s a name you’ll forget to ask.
But it’s a face you’ll never forget.
Can I have a light? The stranger asks.
But you know, it’s just at the back of a bar. Just words fleeing but fleeting and maybe they don’t mean a thing. Another smoker coming just to eventually leave you.
This is always the replayed scene: the same dialogue, only different actors, only different setting.
A smile, maybe a couple. Drag and puff, a sigh and one more. A question or two. A nod and another. Exchanges of words, about the time, about the weather. A stare, a second or more to share an unspoken gaze, a tryst, but you look away. You always look away. You always let go first. But maybe whatever happened in this unspoken corner, maybe you can’t forget.
Maybe it’s true.
The stranger tells you things. Music. Affair. A snippet of a love story you’ll never finish. An anecdote to a story you’ll never find the closure to. Stories that beg you questions but you’ll never find the answers to. They’re not just words; they’re secrets.
The stranger looks at you one more time. Maybe it doesn’t mean a thing, maybe it does. Words. Smoke. Confessions. Things that, maybe years later you’ll still remember and you don’t know why. But then you always blame the alcohol. You tell yourself that drunken words are just letters sent to the wrong recipient.
So you pull, you compose yourself.
Another stare at you, but you look at the cigarette filters—discarded.
Take care, the stranger says.
It’s easier to exchange words, you remember this. They’re just words, not a conversation.
Take care, the stranger repeats.
And after the waiter asks the last call, after the last cigarette is burnt out and the room is still painted in violet and you’re still alone, you close your eyes. The clinking ends. And the set list finishes.
