»scatter-minded«

nine.[upon meeting familiar seeming strangers]

I knew you,
Before
Like in
Another life,
[Maybe].

'Cause I looked
Into your eyes and
[I thought]
something was
Connecting us.

Oh, I remember.

I knew you
back when we both lived in China,
In the bustling city--
Shanghai.

I had grown up there
And you just moved,
That winter.
New to our bilingual high school.
We had Chemistry
4th period,
Together, you and I?

(Or maybe that wasn't you.)

Were you the one
I knew in Mississippi
that used hang
Near that one run-down
Gas-station convenience store,
Eagle Mart, was it?
I thought I saw
You and your friends
setting off fireworks
One December.

Or perhaps I'm thinking
of someone else
[That I met in another life].

Oh, I'm sorry.

[I think that]
I'm sure
I know what it was now.

You're the one I met
During my layover
In Toronto.
It was late last spring when I went to visit my cousin
(The astronaut one)
In California.
I was staying in Germany at the time for an internship.
It was weird, though
Since I had lived
in Japan my whole life,
Though my father
was from Turkey
And my mom,
From South Africa.
(It was for their work.)

You were sitting near the gate
And I had dropped
My passport
When I walked past you.
You reached down
to pick it up for me
And handed it back
With a smile
And a gleam in your eyes.
But I never saw you again.

Oh.
That wasn't you?

I guess I just didn't want to remember who you really were
In that other life.

A former lover
But not just any "love",
First love.
Wild, dazzling, free,
Oblivious.
We shared things,
Secrets, adventures, feelings,
A first kiss.
(And you were the first
To really appreciate
My blonde hair.)
Hands intertwined,
We grew together.
Hurt together, loved together,
Learned together.
You became a part of me,
In that alternate life.

But here,
In this moment,
As our eyes meet,

It's for the first time.

Because in this life,
You and me,

Aren't anything,
But strangers.