Stranger

Strange things happen, sometimes.

Sometimes, we are not where we are, we are somewhere else.

This evening, the sea is beside us--the setting seems passé, but here we are, and we have never been here before. The ebbing waves are lulling us to something very much like peace. Stranger things have happened.

We have spent the afternoon talking and frankly, you have not told me anything new. I already know all that you have told me--from watching you, from various distances. I know you. I have taken the time to. I know the curves of your brows, the lilt of your mouth, the light and dark in your eyes, the shadows there, the fire, the flickers, the embers. They show me your mind, and oh, how quick it is, but how crowded and full of faces, teeming with the weight of thoughts! I know your hands--their rising and falling, their grip, their submission. I know your lines and turns. There is a pathway. I know your heart. I know its weight. I wonder if you do.

I want to tell you: learn to let go, if only sometimes. The world will turn without us. Life trickles on, let us flow with it. Learn to go with it. Teach yourself to stop and just be. You are tired. Breath out the heaviness.

But I do not know how. So I just sit here, watching you from lowered lids. You have mellowed into a subdued mood, and I am relieved. I am thankful for the distance, thankful for the time. I exhale my gratitude into the great void, and whisper a prayer into the sea.

I am aware the end will come. I accept it. But for now, we are. Let us just be.

Stranger things have happened. This does not surprise me, and this does not surprise me.