It feels as if the identity associated with that name is simply a far-away memory implanted in my head. Was that person really me? I can no longer tell. When I walked her stomping grounds, with thirteen years of separation, I saw a pale scale model imitation of the locales I still sometimes dream in the interval between. When I had to greet people who knew only her, I could feel their expectation for a different person - not me - compressed down upon my shoulders as if willing me to shrink, or to speak.
Like her.
Somewhere between then and now, I had apparently lost the ability to speak. Instead of pouring endless words and conversation, I sit to observe their vitality. Too conscious of the moment, too awed by the fact of existence and act of speech.
This super-sensitive meta-awareness. Was it exponentially heightened only in the isolation of the last year? Or was it a slow, undetectably deepening phenomenon, brought to a highlight only by his strange colors this spring?
Threadbare.
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