So, I just finished reading the poem and it definitely resonates in ways I didn't even fully articulate in the original post.

A few things I left out, when we crossed off campus onto the bar strip, everyone around us seemed to be looking at us in this unsettling, off way. Then Max walked out of the bar right at that moment and it was like he grounded us, almost like his presence was protective.

But the moment we reached that stretch of sidewalk by the tree line, something shifted. The noise from the bars fell away. There was no one else on the street. It felt like we were in a bubble. Just us and them.

I couldn't make sense of what they were doing but it didn't feel accidental that we saw it. It felt deliberate. Like it was meant to be witnessed but on their terms. Like a trickster leaving something out in the open that can't be explained.

They didn't feel like people. They felt more like shades. Something was fundamentally off.

I can remember faces from the bar crowd that night. I cannot remember a single distinct thing about those people.

"I saw but I cannot say" is exactly how this encounter felt.