Two lines that continue along the same path but never meet
We have been apart for so long that small point when our paths diverged is not even visible on the horizon.
When did we meet, did we ever meet? You go to the same sun soaked beach holiday to Portugal with your friends, that I go to with mine. Our string bracelets, made for each other as a reminder of being young and in love at camp, now aged with the maturing that hit us as soon as we left, forever tinged with the smell of the lake, only leaving the slightest of tan lines on our wrists. The last reminder of our summer now buried in the back of our drawers.
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We both say we’ve moved on but out of the blue, almost a year later I still find myself on the verge of tears when your picture appears on my screen. I see how good the months have treated you. You’re back home, in the country that was deemed so far from me that we decided to never speak again. The same country I have already visited thrice. The same country you vowed we would meet in if I ever found myself there.
Our music taste was never that different for me to know with certainty that we both end up listening to the cranberries under the same night sky, at least once a month, probably thinking of the night we both promised to never let it linger.
But we keep moving like this, parallel lines never to meet again. Your face in your most recent pictures looks as familiar as the day I left you. your eyes bore into me through the screen, still enough to make me weak in the knees. I had only just learned to memorize the contours of your face, but I know even if I see you years down the line walking past me in the same city I will recognize you right away.
Because somehow, even though so much time has passed and as you said, too much has happened and everything has changed. I don’t think it will feel like that if I ever saw you again. Because you stay just as vivid in my mind as the last time I saw you.
