Your mouth moved out first

You walk past the huddle out back at a party. Shoulders hunched, phones glowing, a little cloud hanging over them. A sentence forms in your head, and it uses the word they. Not we. They. You never sat down and decided that. Your mouth moved out before the rest of you packed.

Pronouns move first. When smoking comes up in conversation now, you listen like a bystander. Curious. Not implicated. Saying I used to sounds like a story about someone you knew once. No contempt in it. Just distance. Your grammar got promoted ahead of your self image.

Self image is slow and stubborn. It won't take a pep talk. It reads the record, including every little word you never chose on purpose. The cigarette used to keep half of you outside every room, already planning the next one. Now all of you is in there for the whole conversation. That little word is evidence, and it's on your side.

Today, catch one they in the wild. One we that doesn't cover that huddle anymore. Keep it to yourself and enjoy it. God moved you while you were busy living ordinary days. Why argue with a mouth that's already telling the truth?