ellipsis

I was on the train last weekend and I met a stranger shortly after I boarded. We struck up a conversation. 
We spoke about Palestine and life and American indifference, isolation, hubris
What do people here think about Palestine? he asked
They are cowardly silent or completely indifferent, if not outright hostile I replied 
He wasn’t from here. 
He was visiting for only the day, he said, and was going to return to the airport after he finished exploring the city. 
I skipped my stop and I invited myself to join him, we spent roughly 12 hours together. 
This was chance, he said, 
Serendipity, I said 

It’s been some time since I’ve written anything and put anything here. I don’t feel comfortable putting anything paid out right now, obviously. 
Every instance of thought or observation feels dwarfed, insignificant, futile. 
But these are not really positions one can afford to subscribe to, long term, without succumbing to some nihilistic apathy. 

We viewed a Rothko exhibit and learned each other’s language for viewing art. 
He sat on a bench and took it in from afar for some of the larger pieces. 
I was very close inspecting the edges of color, where you can see the layers of each shade fraying, like the tide coming in hard. 
We were whispering about politics at a cafe for 3 hours. 
I was allowed to be righteously angry and I was allowed to be honest. 
He said Americans can’t imagine dying for anything 
I said that the worst thing Americans can imagine is death. 

Once, a long time ago, I told my friend love is when I would die for another person —
That’s really old fashioned he said 
I’ve said, and I’ve repeated, 
if you wouldn’t die for anything you cannot live for anything. 
This principle is largely missing — 
it’s totally foreign to so many people 
Here. 

Sometimes two creatures share a familiar tongue and find one another in the wild. 
I don’t know what draws people to me but
I am grateful for pouring some kind of light out, if that’s what I do. 

Resignation to despair and pure apathetic hate are related numbnesses.
I can’t place where we are right now. I just don’t know how to place us, all of us. 
I feel grief and rage because I love 
I feel this fury and duty to exhibit love — 
to propel it forward in my being, however it is expressed, whether it be recognized by a stranger on a train as I’m sitting in the sun or glimpsed in silent passing 
Love is what drives justice and the pursuit of truth 

When we parted he touched where my heart is 
He said, this is for the whole world