You’ve sat in my living roomI’ve had dinner at your favorite restaurant
A card here
A text there
We are almost family
But like two streams
Cutting across the land
We never truly merage
into one channel
At times we are close enough
that a hiker can hear the
babbling of our streams
The hiker crosses yours at the base
of a mesa
boots dusty red
They travel west
to find mine in the field
grass burrs tangled in socks
Without a map they wonder
if we are the same stream
We are not
But if they would follow our banks back north
The hiker would see that we originated from the same lake
only miles apart
Now we meander across time
ebbing and flowing
close then away
Not yet family
because we both know
that family is more than water
It is pain
choice
and a sense of togetherness
that can only manifest
when all of life is shared
And that is the scary part
To become family
we would have to merge
open up the floodgates
to encompass all of our joys and sorrows
Two streams
becoming a river
The rush of history
creating Class IV whitewater rapids
What damage would that river cause?
How many homes flooded?
Bridges destroyed?
People caught unaware by the rapid rage of our stories
And so we keep land between us
Both of us secure in between
our own banks
choosing our landscapes
Impressing hikers with our scenery
Even if we are only miles apart