Strangers by Daniella Makoko

We were meant to be strangers – Made to be strangers

A carefully crafted artificial hell we only discovered we were in once we got out

There were no ‘Meant to be’s’, no convenient series of coincidences that brought us together

It was us against the world

Against all odds, gods and monsters

Locked in a game of chess against Fate himself, fighting for the smallest fraction of a chance

Doomed to lose but too stubborn, too stupid, too naive to quit while we were still ahead

Sacrificed pieces of ourselves we were not yet ready to give up

Wrote you into my DNA, made you the most essential part of my existence

Learned to live with a patchworked body,

had to breathe through your lungs, see through your eyes, cut out my own heart just so you could keep your own

But our blood was not compatible, our bodies recognising a foreign entity, fought to expel it

And just like that the second front was opened,

I was killing you and you were killing me

We were killing us.

We ripped each other apart,

Only to realise we’d been in checkmate for the last seven moves

That we were meant to be strangers – Made to be strangers

A carefully crafted artificial hell we only discovered we were in once we got out

There were no ‘Meant to be’s’, no convenient series of coincidences that brought us together

It was us against the world

Against all odds, gods and monsters

Locked in a game of chess against Fate himself, fighting for the smallest fraction of a chance

Doomed to lose but too stubborn, too stupid, too naive to quit while we were still ahead

So now we’re just two people

Never meant to mean something to each other

Never made to make something together

I’ve learned how to breath with no lungs, survive with no heart, live with no love

I am but a fraction of who I was before I met you

Before I knew how it felt to go to bed excited to wake up and talk to you

How it felt to matter, to love and to be loved.

So now, I scream into the silence

Howl at the privation, curse the heavens

I defy you, refuse surrender

We were meant to be strangers – Made to be strangers

But still I loved you.

So, I demand a rematch.