Stranger

Hello. I don't believe we've met before.
So I wave you in, and a sudden vision wriggles through my mind.
It leaves in a flash, and you step through the door.
Shuffling, from foot to foot, I take you through the hallway,
Images adorn the brown plastered walls.
You stop for a moment, pointing to that picture taken on a fall day.
It's of no particular importance to me, yet that sudden vision strikes again,
and leaves just as quickly.

We finally reach the dining room, a white tea set completes a long table
you smile, and take a seat two to the the right on the East side.
I was going to sit there, but I know you are old and sit where you are able.
Your grey hair is chopped, not cut, as if in a ricocheting battle with itself over which length it should be.
Your eyes are lined with wrinkles, and your hands worn from the instruments you play.
Though I'm not quite sure how I know you played an instrument, but perhaps you've played two, or three.
Perhaps I remind you of you.
We do seem alike.

But that means nothing, because that vision strikes again.
And this time it stays.

These visions are no visions, but our vision switching places.
For I am you, and you are me, and you are no stranger, which I suppose makes me no stranger.
This I can see clearly out of your eyes, my old, wise eyes.
This ballroom is no ballroom, it's a pile of dirt in the middle of the field.
And the last thing I know
is that . . .
I am reliving the moments I wish I could change, but cannot.
And that, that is why I am stuck here digging my own grave.
And we are the shovel.