Sojourn

I know it's been a long time when we got the chance to talk. Instictively, I look for you in your friends' photos, only to disappoint myself because I know you'll never be there. When by myself, I mistake strangers for you. I see you in the most unlikely places. It's as if my mind makes things up just to fill what it feels lacking.

In class, my students ask things about you which I respond with silence to mean I have no knowledge of your whereabouts. Even when you were here, you got no interest in telling me stories. What you had for lunch; who made you irritable; where you spent your breaks. You'd often let me do the talking. So I did the talking, without bothering to ask you questions. It's not that the small things didn't matter to me, I'd wanted to hear them. I just wanted you to tell them freely, to supply the details that would be  My students won't really understand that one of the reasons why I don't talk that much about myself is that things don't end up well when I do.

I sit alone and spend some time facing the dread of a virgin white document, I am tempted to tell our story But how can I?

How can I recall something that isn't even fit to be called a memory.

Oh you're a sweet sojourn.

You're someone who doesn't stay.

I am well. Meet me soon.