It's easier with strangers. I get to love them more and dislike them less. Bus strangers are the best. So are train strangers... Only usually a few stops until you find yourself being the only one left.
It's my favourite.
//
It's the easiest with strangers. The encounters are frequent yet fleeting. I love seeing their eyes glimmering wild and spikey. Glistening and gleaming at words shared organically. Never a full expectation but enjoying the exchange so freely.
It's my favourite.
//
Even easier with homeless strangers. They're my favourite. Most of them are like me, sometimes rather frightening. Reflections can feel so damning but when we meet in the street enjoying a full feast, we melt away. Sitting on the pavement outside a kebab shop, laughing and sharing chips until the rain stops or randomly drumming underneath a bus stop.
We feel love coming in to stay. My brother hugs me and I gaze into his eyes. So painfully shy to show him my tears too, or is it afraid? It's probably the same. Either one, I look away. I keep love at bay. I look back and we smile at each other, this too shall pass my friend. For we will enjoy a feast again.
It's my favourite, my absolute favourite.
//
Easy to love strangers before they become "stranger danger" the chant that you're taught as a kid, to shout out loud if someone suspicious approaches you in public.
Easy to love strangers until they become too familiar because then you will love them even more. You'll love them in a different way. We're born from strangers, brought into a world full of them and are instructed to love them. Learn them. Learn their ways, adapt, adjust and forge relationship. I mean, when did I even co-sign on these contracts?
//
I feared the day i'd have to admit that I never knew any of you. Not just the few. I feared the day would come when I'd have to let go of some... If not all of you. To hold on is to kill myself whilst still living. Whilst still breathing. To hold on is worst than the living.
//
This part isn't my favourite.
The part where I rip out all of our hearts in order to save us. This is not my favourite. I vowed to never fall in love with strangers but clearly I did. Never really knew you. Not too sure if you were even real. Not too sure if any of it was real to be honest. Not anymore. Pure imagination, a fantasy, you're fictional. Fictional. Fictional. A fictional character. I feared it but you wanted me to see. I knew it'd hurt but I don't hate you. I hate me.
//
This part really isn't my favourite.
The part I strip myself down naked. No frames, no darkness to plague me. These bright lights glows through skin but no names lay here. Stood blatent.
Stark naked. Not a body. A vacant chamber.
You walk out of the door for good
and I look back to see a "stranger."
You've always been another stranger.
You've always been a stranger.
...
By Analese Thomas-Strachan