When You Say You Love Me Poem by Suki Nakamura

when you say you love me
through the email or through the phone
long distance calls for hours
about what is happening to you
and what is happening to me
between these two continents that
separate us from our presence
when you say you love me
and when you tell me that you are
busy on some other important matters
of your life as i am also busy on some
equally, perhaps, even more important
matters of my own life,

what do you really mean by all these?
and what about me? do i mean to say these words too?

let us confront ourselves now with the truth
we are lonely and we deny ourselves the meaning
of the word: love

how can distance say that it knows how to love?
how can absence be a touch? how can this emptiness
between us be filled?

say you love me again and i will ask you
what do you mean?