For The World Is Hollow, And I Have Touched The Sky

I walked home the same way after class on Tuesdays,
And now I passed the bench where she should be.
I never told her how I felt each day, walking,
When I knew she would be there.
I never told her of the freedom
That allowed my heart to open, slowly,
And the silly grin I felt inside.
I was happy.

Now the bench is covered with snow.
Nobody sat there.
I walked more slowly because it was cold.
Because it was so very cold.

I remembered where she would park her car
But I had stopped looking for her there,
Stopped waiting to catch a glimpse, or see
Her coming to me.
She had stopped parking there to avoid me, and
The cruel things she thought I’d done. I hadn’t done.
And so I stopped looking, and wondering
If she would ever know me.

I have always wanted to know
How I have touched lives.
Reality is made by touching others.
And of our lives—dreams and hope—
Never what the senses sense alone.
Reality is the sharing of dreams,
And we are like silent titans, in a hollow earth.
Never knowing or touching sky.
But we share our dreams to the world.

I have often wondered about the lives I have affected
And about the loves
I dropped like candy wrappers out of speeding-car windows.
Have I touched their lives?
Questioning and re-questioning the visions
And revisions of the ways I have behaved
And the stupid things I said.
What had I become? The arguments I’d won.
Are there clouds upon the sky?

Then I saw her blue car, not that I was looking.
She hadn’t been there in a long time,
But there it was, in the space we knew together.

I laughed out loud,
And grinned the rest of the day,
Because I remember her, and I have touched her life.
I am happy now,
For the world is hollow, and I have touched the sky.