Now I can remember how we met this way...
The city was raining and the bus churned on
and the engine always felt unstoppable,
forever rumbling and going nowhere
but she sat by me and I don't know
if it was the just the first empty seat
or if something had drawn her to me.
Have you ever felt someone without touching
before even seeing them for the first time?
Something left over from more ancient times
when the dark and unseen was lethal
and us frail beings had to be on guard,
we use that instinct for more gentle things now.
Almost like the air softly hums around you,
faintly thrumming like you accidentally and suddenly
grazed an unfathomable heartbeat connecting us all.
There was no formal introduction for these strangers,
and I love how brave and unguarded that seemed,
she passed me an earbud and smiled and the world
finally bloomed with some light even though I know
it was the angle of light I swear it was like seeing
the night sky touch the ocean for a moment.
The music had no words and was hard to describe,
instruments spoke of yearning from other lives,
ballrooms and orchestras lost to time
and decades I knew absolutely nothing about
and only knew through touched photographs
and the ache to live for something more.
Is that what she was trying to tell me that day?
Is that what she was always trying to tell me?
Now I can remember how we met this way...
And there are things I won't talk about...
The way we formed like perfect spoons meeting,
naked bodies cupped in the dark and for a while
completely indistinguishable from one another
because I cared not where you ended or I began,
I was in that beautiful place where flesh meets soul
and blood cries out to other blood in pitches
not so unlike music because there were no words
ever needed to understand such a needful song.
Had she ever felt such rhythms before
or are we never meant to keep them?
Do they remain upon her warm skin
or breathe beneath where she
could never truly let me see?
It would be unfair to harbor the knowledge
that only the young can breathe in such bliss
and entwine as half of a beloved whole.
Or how such music can touch dark places
and make everything sacred between two
become a terrible phantom to the other,
I wanted something to call my own then and
maybe still believe we can love that way,
unguarded as the music pulls us together.
Those are things that hurt too much now to speak of.
Now I can remember something else.
Maybe that vehicle still churns along
full of strangers carried through the night
and the endless drumming of the rain,
maybe other lovers still meet there
almost as if by accident but I'm old enough
to believe nothing is by coincidence,
and even if she can move on from me
and find herself in another city...
Maybe those lovers share some music,
maybe they get to finally go home.
