The distance between us
is so wide that it can't
be scaled in inches, feet, days, or years;
it can only be measured in life times.
The version I knew of you,
if I knew you at all,
is only a shadow in my memory
left over from a previous life.
There are few things I can remember clearly
that have not been softened by time,
or cumbered by loneliness.
Those are:
One,
the small shape of your eyes
when sunlight broke, violent,
like a stone through windows
as particles danced
above us in slow motion.
Two,
the roughness of your rug
against our bodies
as we awoke
on your living room floor.
Three,
the way you offered me your long arms,
like ribbons, I wrapped them around myself,
and finally I felt like a gift.
All words
have been replayed
and rewritten so many times.
Like a photocopy of a photocopy
they have begun to wane.
Everything I have ever written
reads like a piece to the bridge
I am building to get back to you,
to remember who I was
when I was unscathed.
Everything I have ever written
is an ode to a past life,
an ode to reincarnation.
You have made a spiritual being
out of someone as cynical as me.
You would laugh, if you read the last sentence.
But there is no other way to explain
how I can feel such an anchor
for a practical stranger,
whose only familiar feature
that years have not taken
is a first and last name.