A Dark Smudge From a Moth

Tonight, washing the dishes, a lone moth had the unlucky happenstance to fly into the miasma of bubbles and water and hands and ultimately, it arrived captured in my hands.

And as I gathered it in some sort of PETA-fashion, it fluttered and left a small smudge against my fingers. A small ink stain. A purple mark. Not a bruise, but a memory of a struggle.

And so I thought about the people who have left their dark smudge against me. Perhaps indelible. Perhaps permanent. A staccato of tattoos that I have captured.

And frankly, it's become something of a topic for me. There has been a fairly recent reconnection, via social media, of people that I literally haven't talked to in almost 25 years. And yet I am picking up literally where we left off.

Is it Deja Vu? No, not really. There are still people that I am fortunate enough to interact with daily, weekly, and they stamp their place on my heart like a stapler cutting into paper. They do it very business-like, and having succeeded, move on.

I'm talking about people who suddenly splash into this planet and create a nuclear cloud. People who I see and recognize, and then a name comes forth over the span of some clues and minutes.

They leave a mark on me. Or rather, they've left their mark on me. And in discovery, I find them. Not suddenly, but as if they had always been there and now I recognize them.

Strangers to an extent.

Does this make any sense? Probably not so much. But in the metaphor of a dying moth, held fluttering in the cupped hands, and released with barely a smudge on my fingers, I do realize the delicacy of interactions.

Of times when our times have intersected.

Of times when we were literally the only things we were looking at, or thinking about or holding in our gaze.

And I'm not sure if I've given those folks a better view than what I've gained. If they've received a portion of their skin in the game. If they've captured what I have seen.

If they've gotten a smudge of the colors and the feathers of their wings that they have left on me.

Because they have. And I go to bed with the dark smudges of them against me.