The concept of being a stranger - it bothers me.
There are so many people that I pass every day that I will never know.
That will never know me.
So many hearts and minds that will remain foreign, mysterious,
locked up.
Or maybe, too vaporous to access, to hold.
Too intangible -
slipping right through my fingers.
The girl with the brilliant
green eyes, pink strand of hair -
my never friend.
But we are not strangers to each other.
Really, we know each other better than we think -
are not so very different she and I:
We both have a mother, father,
dreams, aspirations, fears,
loves, joys, dislikes:
She likes her coffee sweet,
I like mine milky.
She wants to be an architect -
draws urban plans on her inner arm.
I want to heal the world -
keep tweaking my concoction
of healing elixir;
dropping in new additions
as I learn them.
Her dad left when she was five -
no letter.
My dad when I was twenty -
just one.
But letter or none -
it's never enough.
We could compare battle scars -
wounds from our lives lived fully,
lived with an overpowering insatiable hunger;
a desire to do, to connect,
to hear, see,
be heard, be seen.
But they are one in the same - the scars -
you can't compare them.
They are indistinguishable, inseparable -
part of a greater tapestry of human suffering and resilience.
We are not strangers - we are the same.
