Familiar Strangers
We are estranged
Which is to say that we have made
Strangers of ourselves to one another
Things have been done and words were said
Each remembered sharply by the other
And like remembering the dead
By each at the feet of the other laid
Sorrily sent sadly arranged
Withered bouquets gather dust at our feet
Reminding dryly love and hate
(As we avoid ourselves lest our eyes meet)
Are two sides of one coin: is it too late
To flip this coin and make things right?
Familiar strangers we avoid these eyes
Where we have seen hate rising as love dies
Eyes once lost in our own now lost alone
Made unfamiliar to each other now
Strangely familiar to know we have known
Our nailed-down lives upended and deranged
We gave our hearts and then we gave them back
We must seem not to care to us somehow
We who die longing for the love we lack
Still asking the question but with a sigh
While wincing from how painfully we paid
While left with nothing but empty hands
While left with no one who understands
The answer like the falling of night
Drops like a dead star down through the sky
Nothing has changed
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMVIII
Share
Print
Save
Follow
And you tell it so well. -gene.
CarolHawks