All these days
I thought I was fated
Challenged against my will
To gain the trust of strangers
Strangers who turn into friends
Friends who turn into lovers
Lovers who turn heartbroken

I don’t bow my head to their feet
I bow down way beneath
To offer this trust
In desperation to be trusted
With the impression that trust happens on the outside.

While I feed my soul to the world outside
While I feed myself an understanding
That strangers turn into friends,
I am blinded away from my world on the inside.
Those I always know are my own
Become more transparent than invisibility
Those I take for granted as my own,
Become the strangest of strangers.

While I chisel and chisel away
I shape strangers into friends
Friends into lovers
Until I carve a bit too deep into the stone
Realizing a little too late its fragility
Lovers turn broken hearted
And I fall

And there they appear all over again
My very own strangers
They reappear
With love
They disappear again
With strangeness
Yet only they appear again
And again

Godsend, these strangers are
They let me walk away from them
They let me befriend
They let me love
They let me hurt and get hurt
They let me fall
They watch me fall

Yet they appear,
Only to pick me up again
To hold me with grip
To be my crutch, my wheel and my horn
To be the strangers I first opened my eyes to
To be the strangers who showed me friendship
To be the strangers who taught me love
To be the strangers whose hearts are too strong to break
To be the strangers I call,
My family.