Maybe

We met by chance.

Or rather, we never actually met.

I don't know how tall (or short) you are. I don't know how your voice sounds like. How the curls of your hair sit on your head, or how rough your skin feels due to your hard work. I don't even know how thick your accent is, or the gestures your hands make when you speak, but I suspect you have them.

And also, you don't know me either.

You don't know what I do. You don't know what kind of paradox I am. You don't know how I can go from smiling, feeling genuinely happy one second and then listening to a very sad, melancholic song the next because I intentionally want to cry. How really shrill my voice is, or how I squeeze my hands so often someone might think I'm a puncher. You don't know how good my hair smells, or how I have a thousand different shades of nude lipstick at my disposal every day.

We may talk like we've known each other since childhood. Like I used to come around to your house and run around your backyard while your mother makes cupcakes. Like you used to pull my ponytail at school to make you look like a tough guy, but never missed a chance to pick some wild flowers for me on the way back home. But the truth of the matter is, we know nothing about each other.

We're aliens.

I didn't expect to hear anything from you ever again since the last time we made contact, until you appeared in my inbox once again. You were looking back at the camera, standing on a small bridge, and a charming Italian town behind you. I can clearly see peach-washed houses and bikes and brown-haired people on the background. You were smiling so brightly I didn't remember you to be this cute. The caption reads, Get a house here, maybe?

I smiled. You remember my dreams.

So maybe that's why I never forget you in my dreams.