Who Are You

I pretend to be reading, but my focus is not on the words decorating the page. I have reread the same passage 5 times, never truly taking in what the words mean. My mind is elsewhere as I glance at the words blurring on the page as my eyes focus on your face. Who are you? You sit with your glasses covering your eyes, the remote in your hand as a movie plays on tv. I have no idea what the movie is about, I hear the words but cannot take in their meaning. Words have no direction now. Only this question burning in my mind takes on any real meaning for me. Who are you?

I look at each feature on your face, from the curls covering the wrinkles on your forehead to the eyebrows and lashes that decorate the green of your eyes. The room is a bit dark to see into your soul and I return to just looking at you, wondering what it is about you that helped me learn to love you; to love you still. I pull my feet up into the chair, turning again to my book, but my heart only searching for answers. Who are you?

Sometimes when I glance across the room at you, I haven't a clue who you are. As long as we have been together, sometimes I feel as if I know only your face as a stranger would passing you in a grocery store aisle. Yet I continue to stare, can't take my eyes off of you, wondering what shadows I can find hidden behind the stone hard surface of your face. We haven't spoken, each of us rearranging our bodies into comfort, you on your chair, me on mine. There is a tension between us, not uncomfortable, just there, hiding in the darkness of the room.

As I turn again back to my book, becoming momentarily distracted by the tv, I see you glance my way. You know I was watching you, and it has brought you to your own question of who is she? What is she thinking? Yet neither of us dares to ask the question. We both return to our activities, me trying to concentrate on the last pages of my book, you on the movie that has returned after a commercial break.

There is so much distance between us, in this space of 3 feet. I could reach out and touch you physically, but emotionally we are worlds apart. I want to draw you in closer, but I don't know how. Who are you?

I finally laugh at something that comes on tv. It isn't something funny, yet in this moment it hits me as funny, considering the thoughts I am having, and I need a distraction, to undo this distance, something, anything to pull you closer to me. I laugh. You look at me, a glint of a smile on your face, but I can tell it's a questionable smile as you wonder again, who is she. You shake your head as you begin to explain to me the joke in this advertisment. I don't care about that. Who is she? Who is he? Who are you? Our minds, our bodies, our worlds are disconnected. We live in this home, sit in this room, yet between the space is a glass wall we can't seem to reach through.

We have learned to become comfortable with this glass wall. We have learned to allow ourselves the distance. But I wonder if you want it to shatter as much as I do. I wish I could reach out and touch the wall, break it down, see through the darkness into your soul, laugh because I am happy, and not because I need a distraction, any reaction. I want to turn to you, reach for your hand, let the remote fall to the floor and shatter into a thousnad pieces, breaking the distance that cowers between us. But I don't. I can't. I don't know how. I don't know how you will react. This distance has become comfortable, but I am long tired of comfort. I want passion. I want our spirits to reach for each other and latch on and run through the grass with bare feet and the sun shining down making our faces glow. I want to quit wondering: Who are you?