Four lines are enough for Abbie to say something awkward and true about relationships: the moments that tie two people together are not always the ones filled with talk, and pulling away does not undo what has already formed. The speaker looks back on a bond that seems to have deepened in the very conditions that should have weakened it, in silence and in separation. Only at the end does the poem admit what that cost: by the time the two turned away from each other, it was too late.
The first couplet is built on a paradox. "The longest we spoke were when we were quiet" cannot be literally true, since no one speaks while being quiet. It makes sense only if "speaking" means more than words, so that silence between these two was itself a kind of conversation. The second line repeats the opening phrase, "The longest time we have spent were far apart," and the repetition makes the pattern feel like a rule. Both lines also have almost the same length, roughly eleven syllables each, which gives the pair a balanced, matter-of-fact tone. There is a small shift in tense as well. "Spoke" and "were quiet" are past, but "have spent" belongs to the present, which suggests that the distance has not ended. Both lines also use "were" where standard grammar would want "was." That could be a slip, or it could be the speaker thinking of "the longest" as a set of many such moments. Either way, the rough grammar makes the voice sound unpolished and sincere, closer to someone thinking aloud than to someone polishing a statement.
The second couplet turns from observation to judgment. "How typically ironical" sounds weary rather than surprised. "Typically" implies that this is how things always seem to go, and "ironical," a slightly longer and more formal word than "ironic," gives the line a measured, almost sighing quality. It reads like a statement of fact, with no exclamation mark. The irony is that the two "turned our back" (the singular "back" suggests a single shared gesture) only "after our heart had already intertwined." The singular "heart" is the most striking choice in the poem. The speaker does not say "our hearts," as if the two had already merged into one before either noticed. "Intertwined" is also a physical, almost botanical word, the way vines or threads wind together, and that makes the turning away look futile. You can turn your back on a person, but you cannot easily unwind something that has grown around you.
The language is organised around opposites: "spoke" and "quiet," "together" implied and "far apart," "turned our back" and "intertwined." Each pair sets distance against closeness and then lets closeness win quietly. The title, "Remote," is the key word that holds these pairs together. It points to physical distance, but it also suggests emotional remoteness, and the poem seems to argue that the two are not the same. The speakers are remote from each other and still tangled up in each other.
In terms of sound, the poem has no regular rhyme or metre. The line endings, "quiet," "apart," "back," "intertwined," do not chime, though the first two both close on a soft *t*. The second couplet runs longer, about fourteen and thirteen syllables, and the sentence spills over from "turned our back" into "too late," as if the realisation arrives faster than the line can contain it. The only full stop comes at the very end, so the poem has no pause for comfort before it finishes. The absence of rhyme also fits the subject, since the two people never quite match up either.
What makes this short poem worth reading is its honesty about a confusing experience. Many poems treat separation as the opposite of love. Abbie suggests instead that closeness and distance can exist together, and that we often understand a connection only once we try to break it. In few words, and with a plain, slightly imperfect voice, the poem leaves the reader with an uncomfortable thought: sometimes the moment we decide to step back is the moment we find out how far in we already are.