(A)long

Does love deplete? Like lonely eggs floating away each month? Do I love you any less today than yesterday, though we've never met? I think of you often; I see your smile on a hundred strangers. Grey-blue eyes search their faces in vain. You may not exist. You may not ever notice me, let alone love me. Time affects slow change here, and a year later I remain. Sitting, reading. Looking, being. Another year, and the first warm salt tears begin to work their way out of the corner of each eye. Seven months on, it's Christmas and the light is short and grey, the kind of light that invites sleep. It's just after two in the afternoon, and as I stir dark flakes of green tea into lukewarm water I look up from my book to see small intriguing eyes entering mine. Slowly, graciously, ordinarily, I realise you've been here all along.