Patricia, before fame
Played for keeps.
Competition was her muse
She wrote her first book
Won the acalades she sought
Changed her face in surgeons chair
And still
In the pages of her, I read quiet despair
A pervasive loneliness in loose leafed characters
They screamed on her behalf, when she could only
Type help.
And
You, today, walking, lost
With large red dog 
And small foot tattoo
You had the same shape
An edge to your corners, as sharp as spite
A quietude and a silence, sadness set firm in your eyes.
I wanted to ask
Why?
Or reveal what I already knew 
In just having met, the corners and the distance
No match for feeling, across tow path
And into that personal space, where you laid your sorrow out
I smiled a great smile
Thinking …
Can a smile impart a hundred thoughts?
You passed, and the wetness of your loss
Felt like brief rain on my arm
Two strangers and a dog
It was as if it hadn’t happened
Yet
You reminded me so much of Patricia
And her emptiness, written throughout each story
You see … we recognize each other
As much as for who we are not, as our similarities
Strange bedfellows of perverse and solitary, mearly trying to tred water.
If I’d spoken more, I would have asked;
Do you walk through the high grass to see the butterflies?
Do you feel the sun before it gets too hot?
Will we walk in the same direction and in time perhaps …
Talk of how we came to choose, empty steps, over laughter
You never know
They could be everything, or perpetual stranger
A moment, and no more
Or the rest of your life.
Instead of pulling away, if you reached into them
Like leaves blown, will fall, one on top, one below
A path of many 
Creating singular
Direction.

29 Replies to “Reach in”

  1. Sometimes, a person really NEEDS someone brave enough to ask “Why?”
    “I wanted to ask
    Why?
    Or reveal what I already knew
    In just having met, the corners and the distance
    No match for feeling, across tow path
    And into that personal space, where you laid your sorrow out
    I smiled a great smile
    Thinking …
    Can a smile impart a hundred thoughts?”
    It sparks conversations that can lead to healing, reflection, love, understanding, and connection.
    This is well-written and complete with sound emotion of loneliness and a bit of indifference too.

  2. A great poetic piece of prose if I may call it that. Fantastic how you captured this fleeting moment of recognition and the sadness of unspoken words.

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