I miss you when you are right here

I remember you,
yearning for the moment
when we once again find each other.
I have not forgotten
the ancient intimacy we share,
nestled within the outermost edges of eternity,
wrapped around infinity
like a rich velvet scarf.

This love transcends
the encasements of human
and the vibrant coverings
that cloak us in skin and fur.
Yet the threads of child, sister, father, friend, beloved
feel like invisible borders,
barricading the essence of our radical cores.

To sit before you
and pretend we don’t know each other,
to avoid mentioning the countless meetings,
the bodies and lifetimes we’ve traversed together.
To not reminisce about our time in the dark stillness,
before all light.
To resist looking beyond the color of our pupils—
past brown, blue, and green,
beyond all white.
To not see the dark reflection in the center of our eyes
and chuckle,
"There you are."

The grief of not meeting,
even though you are right here,
pouring me a cup of tea,
the liquid spilling into the crevasse of forgetting.
Instead, I fall into the blue of your eyes,
and my heart sobs
the estuaries of our amnesia.
I lack the courage to find you,
to let my obsidian gaze reach into your pupil of forgetfulness
and usher you into the vast, undying love we already share.
The gap feels too great—
a glaring white ocean between blue and brown,
obscuring the path to our shared eternity.

So instead, I drink tea with you,
and we talk about last summer,
the ways of the world,
of skin and fur,
sister and son.
Yet sometimes, inside the endless chatter,
there’s a moment of silence,
a minuscule crack appears in the fabric of our form,
and I think I hear you whispering from afar,
"I am here."