I went for a walk around the school block, today. During the walk I found myself turning along with every minute movement, every faint noise. I was looking out for anyone, but anyone didn't turn up.
What did manage to surface though, were hints of you still freshly imprinted on the walls of my ribcage, between the cavities, crawling, creeping. Then come cuts like vines too tight, cuts like papers too swift and sudden, gone before you notice the sharpness of the pain. Gone before they even came.
I wished, when I saw this stranger, that the stranger was you. I wished the stranger was too shy to turn around when he heard me talking, a little louder than usual, for you. Maybe for him, too. I wished that he wished, we both wished, we would be okay just leaving it as it is. But how can the resemblance be this uncanny? How can it be, that the more you observe, the more real, more intimate, more intense, this bridge between the observer and the observed becomes?
Then I realized it's not him, it's not you, it's the millions of things found common in the millions of people. It's all the white polo tees ever made and worn, all the green hoodies and the extra fabric that I swore could have been so fitting on me, all the Converse shoes ever touched the cold tar of the driveway at three in the morning, all the Converse shoes that flagged a cab for me.
Then I also realized the stranger was so old. Old in an oddly nostalgic, vintage film sort of way. Old like the man sitting by the entrance of 7-11, smoking a left-over cigarette. Old like the musty scent that lingers at every stairway. Old and wrinkled and covered in a stubborn layer of dust. Stubborn layer upon layers of memories that don't want to leave, that eventually fades, that still stains, still stings, and still here.