an intimate letter to a stranger

✍🏼

Writing is, in the end, that oddest of anomalies:
an intimate letter to a stranger.

Pico Iyer, (1957 – ), British-born essayist, novelist…

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dear stranger — Aug 2024 — © darren harley

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dear stranger

dear friend

i saw you
on the street
last night
you were walking
by my window

• your light
  shone bright
  in the glow
  of our local
  milky way

i could tell
by the hold
of your eyes
that you were kind
but cautious

• my traumámeter
  sensed
  a vibration
  of pain
  unexpressed

you’re a painter
an artist
a writer — but aren’t we all
you play piano

• like me
  you find yourself
  in a room
  all alone
  with your words
  your paints
  your music
  
  our language
  of primal
  connection

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don’t wait

don’t wait
until a loved-one
dies
until a friend
is lost
until the pain
overwhelms

• don’t wait
  until the moment
  has passed
  to find a phrase
  that heals

—

i see you
friend
you belong

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courageous conversations about the human condition

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