We Are Strangers Again

– I –

Dream in sonic waves.

Pace the halls as if your feet touch the floor. Draw the curtains as if sunlight is the problem.

Wait for a phone call, a knock on the door, a postcard: any sign that she remembers.

Waste time on hobbies. Memorize palindromes. Bend over backwards. This will impress her.

Your longing is a bonfire, so get outside where it can burn. Hold doors open for people who do not thank you. Believe that politeness will guide you towards her. Pray she’ll see the blaze.

Take the bus. Take the train. Search for faces like yours. Like hers. They always almost look like hers.

Believe in patience. Believe in kindness. Take to heart the things your mother taught you.

Spend a lifetime waiting. Sit on park benches, in cinemas, on hotel beds. You’ve waited so long you’re about to combust. And when do you’ll take the whole world with you. It’s impossible, yes, but it’s only a matter of time.

– II –

You weren’t always this old.

Once, she whispered into your ear the sound of rain on a still lake.

Once, she pulled the ocean floor out from under you.

You visited islands together. You dared each other to paraglide. You decoded the rhythm of tandem bicycles.

You always told the truth.

In a sandy voice on a rocky beach, she saidYou know me better than I know myself.

You believed her because it was true.

Even before you met her you were someone else.

Each time you look back, you find a different past life.

But if you saw her now, on a park bench, in a cinema, on a hotel bed, you wouldn’t be able to tell her apart from the stranger who shares her complexion.

On the last night you saw her, in the light of the blazing bonfire, she looked at you, a face you hardly knew, and askedHow did we become strangers again?

In the bygone lives of a man who was never you, you might have had the answer.

 STRANGERS

narcosis

STRANGERS

paranoia