They may be strangers 

but they recognize each other.

The children they were,

nested in the adults they’ve become.

They take no pleasure in knowing they can see this in one another. 

But they can.

Like the family that sits around a table for a meal every day, 

but don’t speak to each other.

Gathering often

in an abundance of formalities 

that replace intimacy.

It’s the uncomfortably awkward and sorely personal.

There is an ease to sitting in a particular nervousness. 

A jarring ratio of familiarity and estrangement. 

Gestures, idiosyncrasies, the playing out of parts 

in a choreographed routine. 

The affection-less family-time. 

Each family member suffering, 

separately. 

It’s the unrequited love.

Knowing one another 

and not knowing. 

Not in a meaningful way. 

A numbing cream over the hecticness

of being unsafe. 

It’s the heedlessness to the fact 

that love should not feel this way.

It’s the deliberateness it’s takes to be here, 

to be anywhere, really. 

It’s having accepted those acute strands of warm light 

that interrupted the dark rooms,

Repeating for days and years:

Step outside. Step. Outside. 

Until one day, they did.

It’s knowing how frightening it is,

to look toward the sunlight the first time. 

It’s the eyelids still heavy.

Because it’s tiresome

to widen eyes that have taken to squinting. 

It’s my wound in their eyes too.