Strangest Inches

Strangers by just inches. Pieces not broken. Only disassembled. I can only pretend to know them. I never really can. And hope they'll return the favor.

It's only easy when it's hard. Decisions lost to circumstance. Pressed firm into these molds we can only become what we are.

Stranger by inches, but strangers still. Lone moon amidst a billion stars as the ocean breathes with it from so far away.

It's easy to remember all those lessons. They stare from the ink that stains my hands. But to know the lesson is not to understand it. That is perhaps, the one thing time can never give to us no matter how patient we are.

If despair is my wisdom. Then words must be my mentor. As they draw their maps within.

I wanted to know each of them. And when I found myself unable I just pretended. Because I didn't want them to know I'd failed. That all my words could amount to nothing. All that listening couldn't take us those few inches closer so we'd not have to be strangers anymore.

And wisdom was not to be found in a broken heart.

I couldn't let them know these things about me. So I lied and said what they wanted to hear.

And all those strangers, I became their friend. Though none would be mine.