Poetry

Stranger

I write to you

from a room shaped by shadows

a fire snarling in its red cage.

A storm prowls the streets

a beast of wet teeth

and raw-throated winds.

And you, half a world away.

Waking to a slant of gold across the bed.

The air heavy with citrus and heat,

the palm trees tilting their green faces

towards a sky too blue to be trusted.

Why seek someone distant?

Perhaps it’s easier this way,

to fold ourselves into pixels and prose.

To unspool ourselves

without flesh and weathered faces.

What a modern paradox,

to be so distant yet near.

I wonder, as I write,

how deep you like to go.

Do you skim the surface,

collecting reflections?

Or dive straight down,

lungs tight with the pressure

of what lies beneath?

I try to feel my way,

to measure the weight

of said and unsaid.

I am here,

unafraid of deep water,

unsure of how far

you let words sink.

And I wonder, as I write,

if I am giving the game away.

Each sentence is a seam undone.

What is this we are weaving,

is it leap or landing?

Your life is a place I could never ruin.

Mine, a map you need not follow.

Still, I like to ask.

To trade in truth.

The questions are bright needles,

picking the fabric between us.

I hold them up,

watch their points glint,

turning distance into something

alive, and almost beautiful.

To question,

is to admit we are seeking,

even if the answer eludes.

And those questions remain,

of course, but they are part of it.

Not obstacles, but the shape of things.

And if we are brave,

if we let the sky carry us,

who’s to say we won’t find

that this reaching,

was the point all along?

To stand in the light,

to let the miles collapse

into the trembling nearness of skin,

to risk everything and say: