the stranger

i saw a girl once

laughter and sunshine in her opal eyes

a twitch of a smile almost too brief

hair so unruly as if the wind had made the strands its own

a lankiness to her like branches on the limbs of a tree

branches where one too many carved their name

and maybe she did too

i dont know her

i dont know her story

i wish i did

i wish i knew if the stars in her eyes were kisses of cherished love

or scars left behind from her past

or lack thereof

i wish i knew if behind her laughter there was darkness

eternal night

if the eternal night was beautiful like she was

or if it was mean, ugly and brutal

and who decides if it is?

who is the tyrant that draws the line between these things

she is

or she isnt

maybe shes a blend

a rainbow

a mix of a million colors threaded into place

or out of place

what is their place?

to exist within her

to blossom behind a closed eye

to fracture at a gentle glance

what are her colors

are they meant to be there

spilling into one another unnanounced

bleeding into shapes we try too hard to name

i saw her again once

or maybe it was someone almost like her

and i wondered if anything had changed

if the stars in her eyes had dimmed

or only shifted into something harder to recognize

if the laughter was still sunlight

or just the memory of it

a reflection

i still do not know her

i still do not know her story

but once in a while

when the cherry blossoms bloom

and make me think of her

maybe no one does

not even herself

maybe she is still deciding

which parts of herself are real

and which were only ever reflections

caught in someone else’s gaze

someone like me