I wonder how I look when I don’t quite look like me – A poem

I found you in a song the other day
And you’ve been stuck in my head ever since.
You hide in faceless laughs and sideways glances,
An illusion in the corner of my eye.
I think I see a flicker of familiar and then
You’re gone, lingering as a distant relic
Or existing in only two dimensions –
Frozen in photographs
Where I don’t quite look like me. 

You would be a stranger to me now,
With recognition on the tip of my tongue.
Introductions and pleasantries interweaved with
A quizzical search for an answer to what lies beneath now closed eyes.
I may be able to see your pupils but they won’t let me in.
The piece of you I heard in a song would be beyond what I can see.
The you I knew is buried now
Under the inevitable layers built by time.
That’s why I think I see you sometimes…
And I’m never sure whether I do.
Because even when I think I’ve caught a glimpse,
You never quite look like you.