I met an alien once.
She used to say it like a joke, but I didn’t believe that.
She didn’t feel like she belonged here.
Might have been why we connected like we did.
She talked to geese.
Not at them but to them.
Said thank you to automatic doors. Told the microwave “nice job.”
Once apologized to a chair she stubbed her toe on.
She said her cat understood her better than most people. Well, her and Taylor Swift. I believed that. And the cat did too.
It never phased me. It was very much her.
She would wave at squirrels.
Once we were pretty sure they waved back.
She stood, eyes wide, like she’d accidentally made first contact.
We didn’t talk for the rest of the walk. We just smiled weird.
She left little notes around the place.
Bathroom mirror. Bag of gluten free flour.
One was taped inside the fridge;
“You’re not broken.”
Others, “Don’t forget snacks.”
I never knew if they were meant for her or for me.
Likely both.
She never did say.
She was always trying, I think, to stay grounded.
To play along.
To not feel like she was on the wrong planet.
But when it got dark, it got dark.
I recognized it in myself, too.
And I didn’t know how to help.
Often it felt too late.
She’d break sometimes. I did too.
But never in sync. That made it harder.
So we just kind of sat in it sometimes.
Watched bad TV in the dark. Ate cereal for dinner.
Never saying much.
It wasn’t perfect, but it wasn’t nothing.
I showed up when I could. Tried to make her coffee (with oat milk, not bad stuff actually). Brought her the snack supplies and bublys.
Laughed when she blanked on how the elevator worked.
Held her hand when she said “I don’t think I’m doing life right.”
What do you even say to that?
I just squeezed her hard. Figured that was enough. It wasn’t. Not even close.
We did that dance for a few years.
We ended.
There was no fight, no grand blow out.
More like slowly letting go.
And then she noticed.
And I pretended I hadn’t.
For a while, anyway.
Now I thank inanimate objects.
I over explain things to the squirrels.
I miss the cat.
Sometimes I leave notes in my own fridge and pretend someone else wrote them.
I still wonder if she really did run away to Mars
Was she an alien?
Maybe she was.
Maybe I was too.
Dedicated to Zoe.
Ghosts of the Navigator 