Hello, Stranger

You - stranger.
You're my Zahir.

I remember the way you sit with your legs wide open, slumped against the rattan chair. I see the distracted and restless look in your eyes. The boyish charm you exude whenever you looked up to see who's passing - are you lonely?

I wanted so badly to go up to you, to cup your cheeks in my hands and stroke your face.

I can recall the way you rattle your fingers on the barista's counter while waiting for your latté. Sometimes, when I miss you, Stranger, I tap my fingers on the table top according to that same rhythm.

As I stand behind you in the queue, I watch the creases in your shirt and marvel at the isolated perspiration patterns on your back. Your solitude draws and intrigues me. Your dark skin leaves my pale hide in want.

My Zahir, you.

*****

According to the writer Jorge Luis Borges, the idea of the Zahir comes from Islamic tradition and is thought to have arisen at some point in the eighteenth century. Zahir, in Arabic means visible, present, incapable of going unnoticed. It is someone or something which, once we have come into contact with them or it, gradually occupies our every thought, until we can think of nothing else. This can be considered either a state of holiness or of madness.

Faubourg Saint-Péres
Encyclopaedia of the Fantastic (1953)

*****

I am mad. But not stalker-mad, of course.
I never ceased to amaze myself sometimes. :)