The Intimacy of Strangers

We have learned to keep one another 

within the easy reach of a thumb, 

yet the distance between 

two souls has become a country 

without roads.

A message arrives— 

Take care. 

Two words, neatly folded, 

sent across the afternoon 

like a paper boat on a river 

no one intends to cross.

Love is a set of conditions. 

Trust waits outside the door 

while suspicion searches its pockets 

for something stolen.

We sit together at a table, 

each face illuminated 

by a separate little moon; 

our fingers wander 

through the world 

while the person beside us 

grows unfamiliar with every passing minute.

Once, silence meant

there was nothing left to hide. 

Now, silence is a punishment, 

a door slammed without sound, 

a verdict delivered by 

the absence of three dots.

We have become skilled at 

leaving without departing— 

withholding tenderness, 

postponing apologies, 

turning affection into a debt 

the other must keep paying.

And yet, beneath this polished indifference, 

some ancient creature in us 

still waits at the window.

It listens for footsteps 

that do not come with an explanation, 

for a voice that remembers 

the tremor we concealed, 

for a hand that stays even 

when there is nothing left to gain.

Perhaps we are not tired of loving; 

we are tired of negotiating 

the price of being loved.

We want to be understood 

without submitting evidence, 

to be forgiven without 

rehearsing our innocence, 

to sit beside someone 

and let the world remain 

unanswered for a while.

But morning comes. 

The screens awaken. 

The familiar strangers return 

to their carefully managed lives.

And somewhere, 

between a read receipt

and an unanswered call, 

a human being quietly wonders 

whether anyone would notice 

if, tomorrow, they stopped pretending 

to be all right.