Distance has a particular way of hurting:
It begins slowly, and is self-contained.
Because our mothers would often speak about Love,
and how everything falls helpless in Love,
Distance becomes a housebroken dog.
It is powerless, and whilst I love, I am powerful.
On Sunday, our fathers would teach us to put our faith in things unseen,
and so we grow confident and complacent.
Just when you think you’ve understood it,
It sinks its teeth in hard and deep.

An idealist tries to make it out light and easy
They will often write poems about finding
ideal love in the real world.
But I will write about knowing
real love misplaced in an ideal world.
It’s a world where comfort could come in binary files
filled with digital empathy and memories.
Where typed words and numbers that form
black and white promises could replace
the real and organic voice of reassurance.
Where wires between my webcams and your headsets
could entangle themselves in ways our fingers
used to be intertwined.
Where waiting for an email meant as much as
waiting for you to return home to me.
Where the strategic positioning of your punctuation marks
could transform these passive symbols
into active symbols of love and concern:

A comma, like a shared pause for when our eyes meet
Exclamation marks for when we wave to each other from across the street,
or as a passionate gesture from underneath these sheets.
A question mark for when you’re sick and I am by your bed
Worried, because you wouldn’t eat.
A semicolon for when we argue,
and a full stop for when we finally give in.
A parenthesis for containing moments of vulnerability
that only seem to leak out late at night.

You won’t know it but,
I dream mostly of an online conversation,
filled with time stamps that affirm your presence.
If I’m lucky, I will find an ellipsis
Small creatures of continuity with
heads heavy with hesitation.
…
And - if I’m really lucky,
I’d undo those black buttons of suspense
and see you once more.