جانم

for our eight years, i was waiting for a photo in prague. what happened, instead, was a lovely photo in london

thank you for being here
with all my love

the smell of the wet pavement, the wet trees, the wet grass

the wet air of a past rain; your wet breath in the thick darkness

before i left, i dreamt non-stop of swimming, of being in the water
the last few days i've been crashing cars, hitting "undo" in my sleep

the fact that every passerby has a story, a history, troubles, loves, pleasures, stresses, interests, all of it, is terribly overwhelming.

i remember my mother saying, long ago, that she wanted me to have a sibling so that i "wouldn't be alone." it's only just hit me, after a friend remembered her own mother saying the same. one can feel perfectly alone in a house full of siblings, of course, and one can be perfectly content without any. but on the whole it makes a difference: to have someone other than your parents in your parents' home; to have a person with whom you share your earliest memories, a history, a lifetime of inside jokes. it makes a difference when someone knows first-hand how you were raised, in what circumstances, and with which supports.

perhaps the years of separation from her own brother made this more pronounced--the fact that she didn't want me to be alone in life.