Where do I know you from?
Your face is so familiar With its creased brow and dark, strong eyes You are Greek, I think. Your hair is different, wild and free I seem to remember you normally wear it up. But when was that? That you wore you hair up? Where do I know you from? I'm trying to look at you longer, to catch a memory within your face, Without you seeing me staring at you, Staring into you to find that memory. I steal a glance, and then another Each time brings another twinge of knowing And the memory of you dances teasingly around the shaded outer edges of my mind. Where do I know you from? Are you the woman who works in the bakery opposite my housemates office? Did you sell me a pomegranate scone that one time? I try to remember you smiling but I can't, even though your eyes are kind. Are you the cleaning lady the agency sent the day Annika was away? I seem to remember she was slimmer, her jawline more defined. Are you my binman's wife? The girl who used my phone when she lost her bike? Are you the delivery woman who always hides my parcels in a safe place? How do I both recognise and not recognise your face? You are a polar bear in the desert. a person out of context, and in spite of your familiarity you are an enigma to me. Are you the cashier at my local Waitrose? The mother of a boy I used to teach? The woman in front of me in the post office line just this morning? Are you the receptionist at my dentist? Where do I know you from? How many molecules of memory we must have to maintain, locked away within our brains, hanging on to all those tiny seeds of recognition of all the people in the periphery of our lives. The people who are so significantly insignificant, so familiarly unfamiliar. Ever present, influential, necessary, unnoticed. And funnily, they will never meet one another, my very own family of strangers. Perhaps you are the ex-girlfriend of my boss' son, who got too drunk at last year's summer party? No, that's not it, that's not it, you are closer, sooner, more present in my life than she. And then, our eyes meet again, and suddenly there you are, placed all at once in concrete. You were surrounded by white in the cool of the studio. You are the yogi whose class I tried, about three weeks ago, on a Tuesday night. I was stressed and your class overran. You look different in evening clothes. Suddenly I realise that you were teaching the same class tonight. The class I was supposed to attend, but missed, because I wasn't sure you and I were quite the right fit. And now I'm here and you, you on your way home from the class I just missed, you are looking at me with your kind eyes, and now this is even more awkward.
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AuthorEllie has been writing her whole life - journals, poems, short stories, scripts... allowing words to flow has been a constant cathartic process for her. This blog is an outlet for her writing, no more, no less. Archives
September 2022
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