Strange Familiarity

I sat with them today,

My cousin and her family,

Strangers, but strangers bound by blood.

We spoke, but what do we know about each other really?

Leaves falling in a forgotten forest.

Familiar yet distant.

Actors in a play not well rehearsed

Now forgetting the lines.

What is family?

The question hangs in my mind like smoke.

Is it liquid DNA that runs through us,

Or stories we’ve shared?

Past memories?

What?

I looked at their faces and wondered:

What makes them like mine?

Do we need the same beliefs

To bridge our indifferences?

What starts as a fragile thread

Tied by memory and hope

Built further on shared truths.

Argh. I felt no connection,

Only obligation’s weight.

But what if connection is not found,

But made?

Not fate but volition.

So I listened to the unspoken stories,

Now they’re asking me questions

I saw a glimmer — is it just a memory?

But it leads somewhere new,

Full of possibility.

Perhaps family is not given, But chosen,

A path we walk together

Even when the road is unclear.