I don’t know you.

The softness between the ridges of bone. Tender spots I’ll never know.

Was it a fleeting glance, or a rotting glare?

Maybe a bump against shoulders. A middle finger shared between cars.

How could it be from so much distance that we are strangers?

You and your language — I don’t understand it.

Your peace and fury — so different from mine.

Even with separate mothers and fathers, and all that makes us different…

do you long for a smile from me?

Do you wish for revelation as to why you are there and I am here?

We eat and breathe. We sleep and dream.

We die.

But all of it never at the same time.

Sea foam splashing on the crags; our tides ripple with different paces.

And the ghost of chance bites us with cold teeth.

In that second of warmth, could we find each other?

Or else, pass one another waving arms, faces full of tears and thoughts of what might have been?

The answer to these questions are revealed with time.

A time without you.