Maybe our cars sat
side by side
at the traffic lights,
and you saw me
as the lights metamorphosed,
and I leant against the window
so something else could hold me
like the boy I'd left behind.
Or maybe I stood behind you, bad tempered,
impatient and sighing louder than necessary,
in the supermarket queue,
humming the notes of a song
that later would wrap you in the folds of slumber,
while I, in insomniac hours,
shrugged off dreamland and
wondered if he'd gone to sleep.
Maybe it was the summer
I dyed my hair blonde, and
had a face decorated with freckles,
and the pretendings of a tan.
I was desperately assigning the shapes
in the faceless clouds
to the boy who'd taken my heart
and forgotten me.
I hope that maybe I was the person
who reminded you of you,
on that particular blue Monday,
when you couldn't see
yourself.
Or perfumed the train with
your childhood vanilla, and you remembered
to call home,
and it made your mother smile.
We are strangers, you and me,
but maybe, countries away,
he'll hear my laugh
unfold from you
in giggle shaped puzzle pieces,
and know.
You see, we are the stars of a labyrinthine galaxy,
inextricably connected as we trace ourselves
onto the night sky,
searching.