We Were All Strangers Once

A thousand lifetimes folded small,
compressed in cosmic silences,
we wandered, particles adrift,
each tetherless, each whole,
each breath a quiet longing for an echo.

The stranger was never so strange—
only a mirror, turned askew,
reflecting pieces we’d forgotten were ours.
In their gaze, the familiar blooms,
petals unfurling from common soil.

I found myself caught by your glance
a glint across the vast expanse,
a star trembling on the edge of collapse,
unsure if it should burn or fade.
I, too, was unmade,
unfurled into a raw becoming.

Do you remember the moment you became real?
Your name, like rain on parched soil,
sank deep into the core of me.
But before that—
you were the murmur of a forest
I’d never stepped inside,
a chord in a symphony
I hadn’t yet learned to hear

I bear
armor like a sole warrior on my battlefield
I learn
Ours are same battles fought behind different shields

We tethered ourselves to shared infinities,
wove constellations in each other’s dark,
breathed life into the spaces
where shadow once pooled.
But there were always edges,
always corners unlit,
where we remained strangers still.

Perhaps we are galaxies in collision,
our centers breaking apart
even as our edges blur,
leaving behind spirals of memory,
faint arcs of light across oblivion.

And yet, in this, I find my trust—
that even in the aching unknown,
we carry the shapes of each other.
For every soul is an unnamed country,
and to love is to trespass
where the maps fall away.

“Hello” is a soft incantation,
that summons kindred flame.
Suddenly, the spaces between
are not absence, but invitation—
not voids, but bridges
arching across the unknown.

We were all strangers, once, you see,
adrift on seas of mystery,
and yet, in this, I find my trust—
to be unknown is to be us.
I am unlost.
Hello.