doodle.

An autumn rain delivers New York City from the dust. It is one of those afternoon showers, one of those little irritations that keep the airplanes from landing and the delivery-boys from quitting their smoking habits. I am on the roof of a Manhattan multi-story still smelling of last night’s party.

I follow the falling rain to the city below me. A maze. Businessmen with their big briefcases rub shoulders with gypsies and poets.

A pigeon flies past a man in a trench coat with a swiftness that I can only describe as a wicked hurry. It finds a spot on a bright red chair be-speckled by the rain. The man in the trench coat pauses to watch the pigeon that stole his seat. It is indifferent to him. A steam rises from a pushcart by the sidewalk. A hot-dog vendor offers the man a beef frank and a dry seat. The pigeon hops off the bright red chair and perches itself atop a woman’s umbrella.

The gargoyles keep the city’s secrets. I spy one perched on the corner of the building beside me. Manhattan loves its gargoyles. And I imagine the gargoyles love their Manhattan too. They are cold and lonely through the day, but come nightfall, their lovers return. Perched on the corner of their favorite buildings, they watch the city fall asleep far below them. And they fall asleep too, in each other’s arms. Manhattan loves its superheroes.

Suddenly I feel the desire to give this pigeon that I am following, a name. I’ve never given anything a name before– growing up, none of my toys had names. I’ve never had a pet either. A name carries too many associations and I’ve always been afraid of them. A name also connotes ownership, and I do not believe in ownership.

There was this cartoon, from my childhood. It was about a pigeon named Yankee Doodle. It wasn’t a great name for a pigeon, now that I think about it. But I don’t have any names in my head either, so it will have to do. Yankee Doodle is no ordinary pigeon. Yankee Doodle is a poet. Yankee Doodle brings the city closer with his curiosity and Yankee Doodle’s flightplan is a poem. No poet could put two things together the way Yankee Doodle does with his short flights and his long leaps. The city is full of stray objects that belong together. Yankee Doodle is a matchmaker for the non-living, and I have a balcony seat to his first wedding.

A dime-store catches his fancy. He is perched on the ledge by the storefront. He looks inside through the window. On a velvet cloth lies a few choice items. Carved stones from Africa, an ornament box which I would like to imagine is filled with postcards, and the most curious item on the shelf– a birdcage. It is a golden birdcage– exactly like the one you would imagine in your head when you hear the word ‘birdcage’– and a lone feather of a scarlet macaw rests inside it, longing for company. Yankee Doodle takes a step back to watch the reflection that just appeared in the store’s window. It is the man in the trench coat, complete in a hat.

Yankee Doodle now sits on a stone step, one of many that leads up to a magnificent library. A woman drags her reluctant child up those steps. The child holds her ice-cream dear and her mouth delights in the mess around it. She frees her arm from her mother’s hands and runs towards Yankee Doodle trying to scare him. Yankee Doodle flutters away and takes all his friends with him. And like that, he was gone– his poem gone with him. The child and her mother walk into the library.

In the heart of the building is my life’s work– a photograph of someone special, placed carefully atop a ticking bomb.

light.

It’s simple is what it is. Hanging threadbare in naked sincerity– a victim of an everyday struggle between the denial of my consciousness and the infinitude of my primal secrets, as every insomniac who has ever laid in bed pining for death knows– is truth.

It’s late and I’m alone. I’m on a lakeshore and the sand below me is moist. Not wet, not damp, but moist. Every crevice of my footprint has found its mate in the sand- and I feel a ticklish love blossom from their chance acquaintance. The tickle runs all the way up my feet to the ends of my ears and they leave my body in an electric shiver that whispers a warmth into the absent face of the dark air. It is night, a starry night. I see the moon in the distance, hidden behind the clouds. Such a tease, our moon. She is bright and insistent upon my wander. Her pursuit is pointed and relentless. The lake rests in her glory. In the white light of the moon, it is a thick, black slime. I am afraid of the lake. The cool wind continues to caress me, and I still feel my ears blush in defiance. The wind blows through the shadowed pines. Each worried wrinkle on the solemn face of the wind-swept lake betrays a loss of innocence. 

It’s simple is what it is. I see a light in the distance. It is the light that seduces you after you have fallen asleep. It is the light that knows all your secrets. It is the light that bottles your honest secrets in little containers so you may consume them as truths once you sleep. It has been three days since I last slept. I am up so I may be awake when the light comes to seduce me. I want to remember everything the light says, this time. I see the light in the distance.

I drown my feet in the water. It is cold but I perceive it as cool. I cup my hands to quench my thirst. The water is as sweet as nectar and as thin as my resolve. It is so guilelessly graceful that I choke on it and retreat into the shore. The moon peeks through a tear in the curtains. The lake still spells fear in my mind.

The light is upon me now. I feel her breath abound. She whispers in my ear. Her voice is like music. I know the song.

Insomnia is a beautiful place. There are no secrets here.

window.

I surveyed the German countryside from the second-class cabin of an InterCity Express that was tearing through the air from Hamburg to Cologne. The foliage near my window whizzed past me in a blur of chaotic leaves fighting canola fields triumphing in a glory of green-meets-yellow. The sky seen through the rush of those trees remained as still as my thoughts. No burning rage in the engine with the power of a thousand horses seemed to matter to those that watched us from above. No human progress could outrun the clouds as they cried upon the frail shoulders of the dying German countryside. The stars blinked in mockery and the planets watched with interest. I watched as a girl’s golden hair was set ablaze by the setting sun and returned to my book when my eyes had recovered. I could smell the rain. Not every pleasure is lost to the sterility of the German railroad. Have you ever watched as the rain pours in defiance of a mighty sunshine? There is a romance that comes with those tear-filled, dark clouds. Then, there is hope in the sunshine. And perhaps in those last sips of  the wine I was drinking from that awkward plastic cup, there was the metaphor of the sunset. Had I been ten years younger and twenty wiser, I might’ve pressed my face against the cold windowpane, my eyes perplexed in curious wonder, my nose making marks on the innocent glass, my mouth bereft of sin, lost in the reverie of an unfated life. I might’ve inspired the poet in a despondent man. I might’ve coerced a song from a drama queen. I might’ve won their hearts with nothing but an unmasked face and a genuine smile. But I was ten years older and twenty colder. I was afraid of what they’d think of me if I were to show them even the slightest little bit of myself. Her hair was not on fire anymore. There were other people in the cabin too. We could see each other through the corners of our eyes, veiled by the hypocrisy of our sunglasses, too egotistic to give each other the pleasure of interest. It was that fear again. A fear of being discovered. A fear that the plastic mask of my face, built from 20-years of wearing a new lie each day, would melt away and leave me transparent. Sometimes, when I look at myself in the mirror, I feel a jolt of that same fear because I know that the hypocrisy adorning my face has no place within the honesty of my moist eyes. And when I look into my own eyes I know that I haven’t changed much- it is only my face that changes. Sometimes, unrecognizably. I once held a razor blade to my face and drew more blood than I did hair. It left a scar in the wake of a beard that nested pungent memories. Today, that beard is back and it has outgrown those dusty days. Time is infinite and infinity is just time without a tale. And every tale is veiled by the hypocrisy of those damned RayBan Wayfarers. I took my sunglasses off. I hate people who wear sunglasses indoors. I returned to my book. I always have a book with me for when I have to take my sunglasses off and I always feign interest in my books because a photographer needs to see before he reads. I reached for my camera to take a picture of those last whiffs of blue sky before the sun was stubbed by the night sky like a cigarette. The night was upon us and as if by the hand of god and the will of the devil, I was forced to contend with what my second-class cabin had to offer me. That second-class cabin of the InterCity Express that was tearing through the air from Hamburg to Cologne, stopping occasionally to feed on people who lived in cities named after cheeses. The hot-chocolate man brought me a cup of cocoa in a paper cup labelled “Starbucks”. I must say that my heart sank a little, but I enjoyed the chocolate as I always do. The deep blue hue of the twilight sky had transferred neatly to the aging skin of the velvety seats. The cushions looked like they were sulking, and I along with it. I looked outside but I could see nothing. Oddly enough, it was too bright inside for me to see anything outside. I was drowsy with a longing for sleep. I looked at the old man with the young face and the young woman with the golden hair. I wondered what they might see if they looked my way. They’d see a boy lost in the mist of his mystic music. They’d see a book with unwrinkled pages and and they’d remark how closely it resembled my face. They’d see the pen in my pocket, a pen that I never carry with me. A pen that was only in my pocket by chance. A chance that I had not taken. They’d look into my eyes and see my blood turn cold in fear. They’d see my eyes dart away in shame and they’d see me pretending to look at the scenery that flew past us all in the darkness. But they were not looking my way, at least not when I was looking their way. I hoped that they would though as I fully submitted myself to the quiet of that moment. I prayed to my own soul that they should see me as I press my face against the cold window-pane of that InterCity Express that was tearing through the air from Hamburg to Cologne, at 330 Km/h as indicated on the screen by the exit row. I cupped my hands around my face and stumbled forward to breathe the dusky air chilled by the glass window. There was a forest in the darkness. The moon was hidden away behind those tear-filled clouds that followed us. There was a white glow that lit up the tree-tops. I longed for the shadows as I feared the darkness. There I was, a face in a window, a shadow without a face. The air precipitated with the lust of the moment as I peeled away from the poetry and returned to sulk in my reverie. Everyone on the train had resigned to a poetic slumber. I watched as their chests heaved in unison. I did not need a mask anymore, I was free.

dust.

It was not the lies that had her on edge. It wasn’t even the tumultuous rambling of her insipid, inconsequential little fairy-tale life– the story of which she had not only heard before, but had unimaginatively helped write for all of 22 years. The sound of her voice made her want to cut her ears off just so the sound of her own screaming would alleviate the sound of her happiness. It was not that she wanted to be unhappy, it was that she could find no reason to be happy. But yet she was. She was a terribly happy person and she was miserable for it.
•
I was loitering as usual. I was out taking pictures. I felt guilty that I hadn’t taken any in months. I’d begun to find reasons to revel in self-destructive guilt. I’d begun to find it vastly therapeutic. I had so little else to do and it did not help that my mind was fully open. The moths of mediocrity were drawn to it like it were light; and I was too naive to put out the fire. It used to be that I took pictures because I was awkward with my hands in their naked sincerity. It became that I spoke louder through that distracting device than I ever had in my years of noisy banter. And I’d grown dependent on the rare power it afforded me. That addiction has its place in the story of my life and as I look back upon the feeling, I realize that the craving has now been replaced by a content vacancy. When people ask me what I do for a living, it makes me wonder. I know that at some point I’d have to stop living and start making a living. It’s not a simple life anymore– everybody is making shit. By shit I mean stuff. Or– I think it is what they meant when I adopted the word from their dwindling vocabulary to give it, sprightly, a life of it’s own. Shits all made up these days. Not even their fictions are based on real life anymore. She was a clown in real life. She had promised me $200 for my pictures of her act in the New York City subway. I spent it on an old camera and some film.
•
He knew what it was; he could smell it. Burnt toast. He then took pride in telling me that he’d burnt it himself. I know how hard it is to burn toast, so I let him have his victory. He talked a lot and much of that talk was wasted on priding himself on his inability to cook. I told him cooking was easy, but I could see that he was the kind of man who couldn’t follow instructions. Not because he couldn’t, but because he wouldn’t. He told me he didn’t know who he is anymore. I asked him if he remembered who he was. He told me he’d forgotten who he was because he was growing fond of who he’d become. He rose from the ashes every day. He drew my attention to the dusty photographs on the wall. I remembered those photos; I’d taken them. They were not very good. Anybody could have taken them, but instead, I had. I walked up to the one in the center and blew a layer of dust off the glass. I think I liked it better dusty, I can’t remember. They were my photos but they were his memories. I watched as he stepped back once again, observed the spectacle of it all and put out the nostalgia with a breath as heavy as his absent past. He lit his cigarette and with a deliberation as exact as his nonchalance, he sucked the life out of it. He smoked because he was awkward about his empty hands. I took a picture because I had to. I gathered my things and waved goodbye. Her car still remained in the driveway. I wrote my name in the dust, and left.

enough.

“I have enough”, said she,
Petulantly.

“Enough?”, said he.

The air was static,
The exasperation evident,
electric.

She wore a thin dress,
Far too thin for the cold.
Thinner still, in my memory.

Sometimes I remember more than I have seen.

He was a man with a trumpet.
He played to the tune of
the dollar bill fluttering
in his broken trumpet-case.

*

“He speaks to me”, said she.
“What does he say?”, said he.

“Nothing”, said she.

“He tells you nothing?”, he asked.
“Nothing”, she said.

I waited in the silence.
The music was beautiful.
That music punctured by her delightful drama.

“What does he say, exactly?”, asked he.
“Nothing”, said she. “Nothing.”

Said she.
She of that winter night. She of that dusty daze,
and frightening ways.
He was her pillar. He was her god.

“But he speaks to you!!”, said he.
“He does”, said she.

He began to pack his things.
He put his trumpet in its case
With his money and his life,
and locked it shut.
He left his music
in the air that it was born,
to die.

I waited in the silence once again.
She was enjoying the silence
Just as much as she had, the music.
He gave her some money,
Which she refused.

“I have enough”, said she,
Petulantly.

“Enough?”, said he.

*

I once knew a man
Who had had enough.
He was a man with a trumpet too,
He’d played a strange kind of blue.
He died, in the subway, with his music,
Alone.
I was there, but he’d died alone.
Alone, with his music.

She was different.
She had enough,
Unlike he who had had enough.

I waited in the electric silence.

“Do you hear him now?”, said she.
“I hear nothing”, said he.


stain.

The room grew brighter with a staccato of clicks as each bulb under the yellow lampshade lit-up in precise succession. The floor was littered with unread books and unwashed clothes. He kicked an empty bottle out of the way as his feet searched for the cold, unwelcome shock of the wooden floorboards. He did not find it. There was an unusual quiet about the morning. A thin ray of sunshine beamed through the silk curtains that draped the bay windows.

The idea was fresh in his mind. He had fumbled with it all night as he lay awake unable to submit to the sleep that flirted with him. When he did fall asleep it was as if he’d succumbed to the wounds of a battle whilst stifling the fervent exhaustion of his troubled fight. It was a peaceful, untroubled sleep and he was thirsty from it.

His foot caught in a knot of intense pain as he stood up to reach for the table. On the table was his flask, his pens and his recycled paper. He yelled a profanity stabbing the innocent silence that hung in the air like a fog, and the echo of his dark tongue fell softly on the sweet scent of that warm summer morning. A determination awoke in him with a fierce start and he knew- with certainty- that today was the day, his day. He felt his muscles relax and he twisted his ankle in a clock-wise motion. There was still a catch in the 6 o’clock position, but he chose to ignore it in favor of the thirst that was slowly getting the better of his lethargic disposition.

He drank a sip of water from his silver flask, this time reaching it successfully and without pain. A drop of water fell from his quivering lip to a blank sheet of paper below. He wiped his mouth on the soft fabric of his dressing gown as he picked up the paper with his right hand, his flask still clenched in the palm of his left. The quiver in his lip turned into a slow tremble. The first line of his book materialized within the folds of his mind. He heaved a sigh of relief as he set his things down and perched himself on the side of his bed, his feet firm against the ground.

He listened. He listened for the roar of an engine, the rustle of a dry leaf, the alarm of a mockingbird. He listened for the chirpiness in her voice as she’d welcome him into the new day. He listened for the sound of the coffeebean grinding against the steel walls of his beloved Cuisinart. He listened and he listened and he began to cry. There was an unusual quiet about the morning as his mind wandered the ghost town of his empty home. There was a staccato of clicks and whimpers as his tears commandeered the sinking vessel that his heart had become. Barring his own sorrow, which punctured the air with the pitiful sound of a profound sadness, there was still that unusual quiet about the morning, that summer, in the lonely street that wound up to the manicured terrace of San Francisco’s Telegraph Hill.

*

He broke into a cold sweat. He was bound to a chair in a cavernous room, waiting to be tortured until his pain gave way to his secrets. Time had stopped for him, time was irrelevant. This was torture. This transcended time. Pain always transcended time. He stared down at the blank sheet of paper knowing that every fragment of his imagination, even this one, could belong in some way or form on that blank sheet of paper before him. His pen trembled in his sweaty palms as he thought of the words that fashioned his unpleasant daydreams. He threw the blank sheet of paper down on the table and continued to stare at it for a few minutes in silent disbelief. The little drop of water had left a mark on it. The bud had bloomed into a flower. Full, but tortured. It was a delicate mark, a watermark if you will forgive the pun, and it lay there with a simple elegance, as if it belonged. He was agonized by the arrogance of that mark he had not made, that mark he had not even intended. The mark grew into a stain in the animated imagination of his tortured mind. His blood boiled slowly as he filled his cupped hand with water from the rapidly emptying flask. Drops of water splashed around his feet. It was not much, but it irritated him. The quirkiness of his behavior caught up to him in a crescendo of insanity that ended with him misdirecting the water that was meant for his face in a disgruntled, wet, slap across the face of that blank sheet of paper. He wiped his face with the moisture that remained in his hot palms, got up and fell face-first into the welcoming arms of his messy bed.

*

She loved him dearly. She loved him for his wild imagination and his wilder reality. He did whatever he pleased, whenever he pleased. He had the money to afford him that luxury. She loved him for his money, for it was HIS money. Money he’d earned doing what he loved. Money he’d earned before she ever loved him. She loved him with a sincerity that would even rival the promise of his money. She loved him. And he loved her. She was the first woman he loved. Perhaps not, but she was certainly the first woman he loved back. With her, he knew it would be different, and he had made his money, so, for the first time, with her, he took the chance he was always afraid to take. And he loved her for her song and her dance and the theater of her persona. They were happy together. They had everything. He had her and his writing; she had him and her music. It was beautiful.

*

He blamed her for everything. That warm summer noon in San Francisco, he decided that it was all her fault. She did not know. She was visiting her parents that weekend. He missed her dearly and in his heart he knew that she missed him too. She had no reason not to. She loved him. He wondered about her- she had a long train journey ahead of her. She was afraid of flying. But the very thought of her was beginning to crush him. It WAS her fault. It had to be. His happiness was her fault. This happiness was her fault. She had filled the void within him. His every reason to write. His every reason to be happy. She had made him happy without any effort of his own. The fountainhead of his inspiration was a lost, irrelevant faucet within the raging river of her affection. She had patched his yearning with her voice. She had plugged his pining with her love. He did not need his old friend anymore. He did not need a reason to write, and he didn’t. He had grown complacent. And it was her fault. It had to be.

*

He stared at the wet surface of the table. He extracted one sheet of paper from the dry stack. He stared at it. He held it near his face. He could smell it. He loved the smell of paper. The pleasure centers in his head lit up in familiar unison. He loved it. He missed it. He picked up his pen and drew a line through the middle of the sheet. It glided over the surface smoothly and left a wet line in its wake. He flung the pen into a corner in anger. It angered him that it was so easy. So easy to make a mark. He grabbed a pencil from his little Ikea rack. He fed it into the jaw of a sharpener and twisted it until the crunch of the wood against the blade had satisfied him plenty. He forced it against the paper and he drew a line. The friction was like a drug to him. The tension was almost erotically passionate. He loved it so much. The line grew into a scribble and the scribble grew into a practiced, calculated, cherished high. He wrote the first words that came to his mind. He wrote it without thinking. He wrote it, writing. He looked at the sheet of paper and he smiled.

It’s a simple life, an innocent life. A scribble at the end of a shaved pencil, unusually quiet in the San Franciscan night.


tree.

“There’s nothing quite as depressing as the sunset”, she said to me. It’s not the first thing she had said to me but up until that moment I wasn’t paying attention. I find it so terribly hard to pay attention when I have music playing in my head. And it plays all the time these days.
“Why?”, I asked dismissively.
“Because it connotes the end”, she said as she looked into my face.
I could feel the sun setting behind me. There was a warmth on my neck that I wished would spread through my body like a cancer because I was so cold that day. I was so cold.
“You have a big-ass camera”, she said.
I’d forgotten the camera that hung around my neck because sometimes the music makes me forget.
“I know”, I muttered as the weight of the camera came crashing down upon my psyche like a wave upon a rock.
“Do you want to take a picture of me?”, she asked.
“Sure”, I said. I did not take a picture.
She adjusted herself.
The music in my head went away. It was replaced by an urgency. I had nowhere to be, but as far as conversations with strangers go, this one had gone on long enough. I stood in silence for a while. I looked into her eyes as they glistened in the sun. The sun that was quickly setting behind me as I stood there absently. Maybe I wanted to be back home before I was plunged into the icy-cold of the San Franciscan night, I don’t know. The silence wasn’t awkward. I was pretending to be interested in the dials of my camera between my stolen glances of her person. Her skin wasn’t wrinkled; but she was clearly past her prime. The sunset of her life, I thought to myself. Her clothes were loose and merely functional. Like mine. Her hair was wind-swept and in a bundled mess. Like mine. I thought of going back home.
“There’s nothing quite as depressing as a low-ceiling”, I said to her.
“Is that why you’re out on the street?”, she asked me.
Yes, I told myself. That is why I’m out on the street. So I don’t have to be in the depressing little hole that is my room.
“No”, I told her. “I’m out taking pictures. I’m a photographer”.
“Do you want to take a picture of me?”, she asked.
“Do you want me to take your picture?”, I asked.
“I just want someone to talk to”, she said. “I haven’t spoken to anyone in days”.
“It’s like riding a bicycle”, I said. “You don’t lose touch”.
The irony was lost on me at the time.
She laughed. “I thought about killing myself yesterday”, she said laughing.
The music started playing in my head again. I held the camera to my face to disengage her arresting glance. It’s a habit I picked up as a child. Hiding behind cameras. Such a safe place.
“But one does not simply kill themselves when they’re in trouble”, she said.
I took her picture.
“No. One does not.” I said from behind the camera.
“Have you ever wanted to kill yourself?”, she asked looking straight into my camera. I was caught off-guard by the piercing inquiry of her eyes. I felt it surge way past my psyche until it found rest in the pit of my stomach.
“I have a terribly low tolerance for pain”, I said. “I can’t even imagine having my ears pierced or my skin tattooed. I certainly don’t have what it takes to force the life out of me… although every day a part of me dies with the tragedy of today’s music.”
She laughed. “I constantly hear good music in the subway”, she said.
She was right. There’s good music out there. There’s always good music out there.
“Where do you live?”, she asked.
I pointed to the tree down the road, by the bottom of the hill. “Right next to that tree… that’s me”, I said.
“What’s your name?”, she asked.
I told her my name and wished her well. She promised to call my name the next time she happened by that tree. Some nights I wake up from the sound of my name being whispered to me while I sleep.

The sun had set.

memory box.

He’d been excited about the old box all day. Tonight they will light their candles, set it on the mantlepiece and reminisce. Perhaps the smell of the old wax will taint the aroma of their full-bodied wine, but perhaps the wine is not so much about its aroma. He will play his heart-wrenching music and be taken to rare and unexpected places. They will listen to it and be taken similarly. Eventually it will be the three of them. Him, her and their wine. They will befall the curse of contentment and they will talk.

Tonight they will bask in the candlelight, hopeless in their abandon. She’d been excited about the old box all day. She will light her cigarette and put her mind to work behind the curtain of smoke. She will breathe the thick air and lose her thoughts to its toxicity. She will take pictures on the camera she wears around her neck. She wears it as she would a necklace, but uses it like she would, a gun. They will smile for the camera and maybe, if they remember that they are alone, they will be themselves. She will leave her photographs on the mantelpiece with her camera, her candles and her cigarettes for a few weeks. Everything she loves in one place. She will then retire her photographs to an old box, of which she has many.

travel.

What water have we settled for,
The sweeter still or bitter sour?
The yardstick of our average tastes–
That not so less, yet, not much more.

In solemn trees and birds that sing
Is nature’s bride and wedding ring.
But betrayed by our brilliant minds,
We’ve destituted everything.

Sandwiched between rocks and stones,
Monstrosities we’ve built and owned.
And come each week we run and hide
From memories of broken homes.

Inspired thoughts have long survived
Our listless foot and restless eye
To make our peace we travel far,
And search and search until we die.

hat.

“There was the distant call of a firetruck. I did not feel distress then, but I do now. I feel like I remember more than I saw. It is not my memory that deceives me, it is my conscious mind that does. Do you hear the chirping of the birds or do you hear my voice?”

“I hear it all, but I’m only listening to you. Keep talking.”

“I was standing in front of the glass panel by a storefront. It was a shop that sold hats. I love hats. I’ve stood at that window everyday, but have never gone inside. The hats catch the sun in the evenings. They cast their shadows on the wooden shelves. How I love those wooden shelves with their golden shimmer- like the sweat of caramel in candle light.”

“Sounds lovely. Tell me something, why don’t you wear a hat?”

“I love the sun too much.”

She was a beautiful girl. I felt quite lucky talking to her. It was a Thursday. I remember it for no particular significance. She had broken into tears in front of a stranger– me– and being as awkward as I was, I did not know what to do. So I did nothing.

I was sitting by the street, on the stairs that lead up to my house. I had made a cup of chocolate to enjoy with the evening. I don’t remember if I was reading a book. If I did have one in my hands, I doubt I was reading it anyway. I love the smell of books more than I love books. But perhaps that is a lie.

She was walking up the hill with her cycle by her side. I live on a hill far too steep for cycling. She needed a rest and I needed somebody to talk to. We exchanged artless smiles with our practiced pleasantries. She sat next to me and heaved a sigh. I had nothing to say so I said nothing. That is when she broke into tears.

She was beautiful in her sorrow. Fragile like a thin sheet of glass shattered by a flower in the breeze. When she stopped crying I offered her a cup of chocolate. She told me she loved chocolate but hated its smell. I was disappointed, but at least it saved me a trip indoors. I waited in the silence, hoping for it to end.

It did. And it was wonderful. She never told me why she cried and I never asked. I’ve been cried to before, this felt like I was cried at. I don’t mind being cried at. We spoke of music she’d never heard and books I’d never read. I told her of places she’d never been and she told me of food I’d never tasted. An hour went by and with it, the sun. She stood up to leave and it hit me at that moment that I did not know her name. But I did not need it because I knew her by her laughter and her tears. She had not asked me for mine.

“Did you go inside?”, I mumbled absently. I looked at her. “The hat shop– did you go inside?”

“No”, she said.

“Why not?”

“There was no door. Just a window.”, she said as she walked into the night.

music.

Her skin was parched, her eyes were sunken
like an addict on opiates.
She cradled a dead baby in her arms.
She stood in the sun, she was lost in the crowd.
Whatever she could see had to be seen
through the narrowest point of her pained pupils,
because the sun was merciless. Like the rest of them.
And if the heat didn’t get her, the dust would.
But despite her desperately ugly resolute,
there was a stubborn beauty about her slow decay.

She hid behind her hands, shielding her eyes
From the view of the others.
In the crowd, lost in the conversations she didn’t understand,
she stood forsaken.
Her impassive world spun about her in apathy.
But this was her home, and her life. Right there,
behind her own hands, was complacency.

Sometimes she’d look through the slit of her fingers
And watch as they tapped their feet
to the beat of their portable songs.
Sometimes she would try to follow along,
tapping her feet to the rhythm of their lives.
And sometimes,
she would improvise.

She was in a state of peace so marvelous,
she could feel the space between her brain and her skull.
She could smell the scented cool air that blew through it.
She heard the music in its whistle,
the rhythm in its rustle. And she cried.

I was drowning. I was drowning in surrender.
I could feel her cold fingers on my skin,
and the warmth of her touch. I let it fill my ears
while I released the breath I didn’t know I was holding.
One last time, before the plunge, I looked into her eyes.
My entire life swam in the torrent of that moment,
and I drowned. Stabbed by a feather, without a sound.