Leave a Mark

There’s a handprint on the window

A sign of life gone by

The slightest smudge of movement

An impression fixed from skin

The oils adhered to glass

Show that something’s there

A remnant of someone

Passing through their time

Like every soul there ever was

Desperate to leave a mark

To send our voices out in time

“I was here”

A universal lonely cry

Made in every language

Every tongue

Inscribed in every medium

Countless ways and forms

Chiseled, written, painted

In all stages of permanence

From ancient chips

In ancient ruins

To graffiti on an overpass

To those skin cells

On the window

All of us craving

To be seen

And somehow known

Our lives acknowledged

By the others drifting through

Each of us driven by

That same internal craving

Since the dawn of humankind