Once upon a time, when we met after hours of separation, we couldn’t help but hug each other. It felt so good to embrace, to feel like ourselves again, you being you, me being me, us being us… Once upon a time, at night, we clung to each other as if we feared missing a piece of the magical air that slept between us. And it was so close. And so tight. And so free… Once upon a time, we sweetly moaned not in our dreams—not in reality—catching each other’s hand in the middle of the night…
What happened to us? Did we grow up? Did we mature? Did we change faces and bodies? Did we change souls and worlds? Did we exchange or lose ourselves? Did we trade ourselves for people and time? Did we scatter ourselves into pieces and shards?
Now, you don’t recognize me, coming to me in different faces—different masks. Now, you don’t see the real me, the one you used to find so easy to feel. And now… Now, you sleep with me as if you’re alone. You smile at me like a stranger. You touch me as if for the first time. You say cliché goodbyes to me, cliché, cliché, cliché. And I, in turn, think cliché, cliché, cliché. And all of this isn’t me, isn’t me, isn’t me. And none of them—are you, are you, are you…
When did we get old? When did we forget everything that was with us before? When did we want to get lost in a series of unfamiliar faces and fleeting moments of love, a chunk of meat torn from life, the life we once shared, the life in which we were once happy together?…