Words & Music by Mike Power

There are lines everywhere, invisible lines, between words and minutes and people, even us. Some are as thin and yielding as a blade of grass while others are as long and impenetrable as the Great Wall of China.

You learn not to see them, or to see them, depending on your taste and needs and level of curiosity. I see rows of them right now – four horizontal ones and at least as many vertical ones stitching their way between me and the trees, and the birds, and the two women with their infant children: sisters? friends? spouses? I’ll never know.

I sit across the table from you, removed from contact by your interaction with the screen on your phone. I lie on the other side of the bed from you, removed from intimacy by divergent dreams. I can see you but not hear you. Or, I can hear you but not see you. Or, I can see and hear and even touch you, but not know you.

Illusions of solutions curl and slither across invisible lines, offering answers to questions nobody asked.