YOU

Like my mother, the moon, I too go through different phases, where sometimes I return to them and see familiar faces. These changes haven’t always been kind, but familiarity often poses as a faux ally. This place, I have never been. Your face, never felt. The terrain is unfamiliar, so my spirit finds adventure in its ridges and precipices. Yet, like all things, time comes to collect its debt. It tapped my shoulder and whispered that an ending must occur, which brings me back to that unfamiliarity, that I must close this door and step into another. It feels like a test of some sort. What am I willing to lose, to gain? What am I willing to gain, from losing? So I stand face to face with the reaper. In consciousness, very rarely have I stood bare before another, but with you, I willingly strip. From my ego to my secrets, I surrender myself beneath your scrutiny. Now, I’ve found the answers to my questions after I shut the door. As the crickets go silent and the stars shut their eyes in your absence, you are my paradox. It is you. To lose you, you had to have been mine, and to have you again, at some point, I lost you, the proverbial bird that I hope returns home.

— Tolú