Stranger
I was sitting in a long line of cars waiting to turn left onto a street in Hollywood when I saw you. Or should I say, when I thought I saw you.
I was tapping my fingers to the beat of the song on the stereo when I looked to my left, summoned cosmically to attend. There on that corner in a semi circle of people was a man that looked like my first love. I tipped my head to the side just a bit and stared harder at this stranger I couldn't determine was a stranger at all.
His face was Josh but the clothing wasn't right. He wore his hat pulled down on his head and it had some kind of ghetto looking graphic on it that I couldn't imagine him wearing. The pants seemed to hang too low, but his body was Josh's. I looked at his calves and they so identically resembled the legs of a man I had once lived with. Yet I couldn't be sure it was him. The longer I looked the more uncertain I was.
If someone would have told me three years ago as I lay in a ball on my couch, my face bathed in tears, that a day would arrive when this person would mean nothing- that this man would be so inconsequential to me that I wouldn't be able to spot him on a street corner... I may not have believed it. But I might have wiped away the sadness and had a bit more faith in the words echoed by so many of my friends. The healing ointment of time is undeniable.
I was tapping my fingers to the beat of the song on the stereo when I looked to my left, summoned cosmically to attend. There on that corner in a semi circle of people was a man that looked like my first love. I tipped my head to the side just a bit and stared harder at this stranger I couldn't determine was a stranger at all.
His face was Josh but the clothing wasn't right. He wore his hat pulled down on his head and it had some kind of ghetto looking graphic on it that I couldn't imagine him wearing. The pants seemed to hang too low, but his body was Josh's. I looked at his calves and they so identically resembled the legs of a man I had once lived with. Yet I couldn't be sure it was him. The longer I looked the more uncertain I was.
If someone would have told me three years ago as I lay in a ball on my couch, my face bathed in tears, that a day would arrive when this person would mean nothing- that this man would be so inconsequential to me that I wouldn't be able to spot him on a street corner... I may not have believed it. But I might have wiped away the sadness and had a bit more faith in the words echoed by so many of my friends. The healing ointment of time is undeniable.
I remember feeling the same shock at the end of each of my relationships, it was heartwrenching in those moments to imagine not knowing each other so intimatly let alone at all.
ReplyDelete