We sat across the table from each other; yet it felt like we were continents apart. The silence killed the air in the room. But, we sat, in the silence, hoping to eavesdrop into each other’s internal conversations.
I didn’t get to hear his demons talk though, but mine, my demons, oh they were as loud as multiple inner city gunshots.
They kept asking me, “How can someone who was as close to you as ink is on tattooed skin be so cold to the touch? Hm? How did that happen?” I couldn’t answer them. I could only describe what we had become.
“I don’t know, but I feel like we’re familiar strangers now. You know, the type of stranger that you see every day at the gym, at the corner store or on your way to work. You know him, you recognise him, but he is ultimately a stranger. A familiar stranger,” I said.
I knew they wouldn’t be satisfied with my answer, so before they could push for more, I walked out of the conversation and back into the room where my love and I wordlessly sat.
Since I couldn’t figure out how we grew apart, I looked to him for the answer. But when I saw his face project his own struggles with the question, that’s when I knew he also only could describe us as strangers, familiar strangers.