Deja Vu

Do you ever get that strange feeling?

The one that says, 

Hey, you've seen this before.

Been through this before.

Felt this way before.

But have you ever felt it, when you know,

With an absolute certainty,

That it's never happened to you?

When I walk on a crowded street,

And see a pair walking down the crosswalk,

Fingers intertwined,

My heart seems to flutter,

Sinking and riding on waves of loneliness,

Aching for something I've never experienced.

When I scroll on my phone on New Years,

And I see photos of my friends and their partners,

Lips clasped together in celebration,

I mourn the loss of something I lack memories of.

When I see a warm hug full of love and burning passion,

My soul yearns to be held with that same feeling, 

Homesick for something, 

That I'm not entirely sure exists for people like me.

I wonder if something is wrong with me, 

For aching to experience a love so beautiful,

That it gives me pain to be away from my other half,

A love so all consuming that it takes over my mind,

A love so passionate that I can't remember anything but them,

When I'm in their arms.

I believe this feeling of a feeling for something so unrecallable,

Was from a past life.

I was a woman in 1940,

Hands shaking as I read a letter stained with blood,

That tells me I will never be whole again,

That my other half has gone in a flurry of bullets,

And taken my soul with him.

I am a black man in 1860,

Holding the ripped pieces to a marriage certificate,

Tears straining to roll down my cheeks,

Because the amount of melanin in my skin,

Determines whether I'm allowed to be able to hold who I love.

I am a little girl on a playground,

Swinging to a rythym only I understand,

Playing with the sweet girl from down the street,

Summers full of frenzied footsteps, laughter,

And on a quiet evening, as we hold hands together,

We both look at each other and realize,

That this, this moment, goes beyond friendship,

With hushed whispers, 

We exchange braided grass rings,

A promise full of hope and something more,

That society would never look at willingly.

I am a young man, 

Freshly married on a warm September morning,

And when the TV turns on,

His heart nearly stops,

Running to the phone,

Over and over he dials the number,

But she never picks up.

They call it the day that will live in infamy,

The worst terrorist attack on the USA,

But now,

He knows it as the day to pull the wine out,

Because forgetting is better than remembering.

This feeling comes from every heartbreak,

Every passionate love,

Every achingly unrequited crush,

That I've experienced through different eyes.