When I See You Again
Dear stranger in a crowd, I miss you.
I miss your hazel eyes and the way we avoided
eye contact and sat alone instead of sitting
next to each other on the yellow grass.
I miss when we stood silently together in a thunderstorm
and I did not share my striped umbrella,
but stared at you as if you were so other.
We were at an outdoor concert, and I remember your hat.
It was orange and you had a tan
and we were living in a different world back then.
Before a killer virus and quarantine,
and face masks and washing our hands until they cracked.
We were at a packed concert and we weren't afraid of other people.
And people weren’t dying
all around us. There were still people dying
but at a rate we could tolerate.
We were not afraid for our own lives.
We thought life and rain and air was normal
and never thought about it again.
It started to rain and we smiled because the air was clean.
There was no invisible bug to be afraid of,
breathing in was not deadly.
It’s like I could see the music in the air that day.
It was as if I was the water.
It was almost like if I sang loud enough it wouldn't stop raining.
As you stood there, it was as if you weren’t my friend,
someone I would try to protect without knowing it.
As if you were no one to me.
But now I am just here, inside, at a table,
sitting in silence on a chair.
Making charts and diagrams, measuring my soul.
Because instead of dancing with the man next door
I pretend I don’t see him in my window.
I am standing still in my kitchen, trying to remember what’s for dinner.
I have made many things in these pots and pans
except a life, I forgot to prepare a life.
But the cookies are ready and stew is still warm.
There is so much to eat and so many lies to consume.
So many episodes of fear to watch, so many tasks to avoid doing.
So many places not to go and people not to see.
There are so many empty rooms that I cannot enter
and so many humans I cannot touch.
But I am like a paper cup that has been used and never recycled.
I feel useless taking up space.
I’m sitting by the window wishing for that rain again.
I am dreaming about your face and the way you held your head.
I should have talked to you. I should have told you I noticed you.
Now I am here, in this room, doing nothing
in order to save someone I don’t even know.
You, the man with the orange hat, I am doing this for you.
And for me, don’t you worry it’s not all selfless.
I am doing this for us, all of us. I am not doing that.
This is love. I don’t know you but I refuse to be around you.
Because I will save you. I will do everything I can to make sure
that you and I can pack up those dreams and a lunch
and have a picnic one day when this is all over.
That we can shake hands, hell even hug
and tell each other how we did it, how we survived.
How we did it for each other, we did it in silence
on the couch, watching time go by, boring ourselves
with our own repetitive thoughts about nothing.
We did that thing we didn’t know how to do before.
We stopped.
And we realized we had never stopped before and we realized
that moving was not the only way to be in the world.
That breathing was different when we could do it slowly
and dreaming was different when we could devote the day to it.
So the next time it rains on me, oh how I will love it.
Standing in line, waiting in the crowds, bumping into you.
I will tell you, I will tell you, oh what I will tell you.
nina