Jamie Livingston Poem by Erika Merriweather

On the day you were born,
Somewhere in Brooklyn,
A man took a polaroid picture of himself
Staring into the mirror behind a motel reception desk.
He didn't smile.
His eyes just looked straight ahead,
And straight into you.

He didn't know your name.
He didn't know that that day, you took your first breath
At Saint Vincent's Hospital
And you didn't know him.

But one day, many years after he had died and you had grown up,
You would find him.
On a site that hadn't been invented yet on that day you were born.
Through a phone that didn't exist.
Using an internet that almost nobody knew of.

But here you are.
Here you both are.
Face to face.
Two people who were never supposed to have met along their parallel lives.

And perhaps...one day...after you yourself have died,
you both will meet again.
What a strange, and beautiful synchronicity.