Submission by Brian Klopping
States
The first time I met you, we were ten years old in South Dakota. As we passed each other, emancipated from our families, we locked eyes. We paused. Our families walked on ahead of us and the moment fell away. Feeling a bit more whole, we moved on. After a few steps, I glanced back, but she was lost in a crowd.
I never saw her again.
The second time I met you, it was on the coast in Washington. I took a Greyhound bus for the fifty hours it took to find you. There, I found an ancient tree on a cliff, dry roots exposed to the ocean air. I knew the ocean would not feed it until the tide came in. Soon, rain fell to satisfy the starving leaves, but I was left thirsty. I am sure time has taken its toll and since carried that old tree out to sea.
I never saw it again.
The last time I met you, he was unconscious in a hospital in Nebraska. I had never seen him so docile, yet I had never seen him so distant I considered his nurses to be angels; his guardians coming to claim him. I cried out, but no prayer could have saved him. I wondered, what will I see when I look back to find him in the crowd of strangers? Where is the rain to move in and save him? He was lost. He was carried away.
I never saw him again, but
sometimes I still hear you through the feedback. Sometimes I still see you in the bottom of a glass. Sometimes I still smell you in the incoming storm. Sometimes I still taste you in the blood on my tongue. Sometimes I still feel you. Sometimes.
