Do you know me?

We can both agree that we’ve never met before. You don’t know my name, and I don’t know yours.

Let’s say I see you on the street. Maybe I smile, or you do. Maybe one of us says a cool “good morning” with a two-fingered wave. But it’s out of cordiality, because we don’t know each other. We’re just two ships passing in the night.

Except for perhaps a second, you see your pain reflected in my eyes. You see a common struggle, something broken that you want to put together so badly it physically hurts. You realize that we’re as similar as two people can be. So as we pass, you hold my eyes a second to long and you can’t help but wonder-

Do you know me?