Pipes

She puts my face between her old, stiff hands and plants a kiss on both my cheeks. Her lips are dry, but her smile is warm, and I can't help but hold onto her for just a second longer after our embrace.

"You look just like my granddaughter," she says, her kind eyes resting on my face.

Her vision, like the rest of her body, is deteriorating, and she isn't really seeing me like everyone else sees me (I look nothing like an Italian and I'm sure nothing like her granddaughter), but something about the way her face softens when I'm in her presence makes everything okay.

"The pipes in this building are breaking down," she comments, wiping a drop of sweat off her forehead with her wrist. I too am sweating, and I comment that the place also needs a new paint job. It looks like a run down psychiatric hospital, its stained sea foam green walls peeling and withering.

"This place is really old," I say.

"Not at all," she replies, dismissing my comment with a wave of her hand. I realize how absurd the term 'old' must sound to her.

Her soul houses a lifetime of painful memories - a lost childhood, a husband who taught her lessons with his fists (she still has the scars), and a mysterious killer in the 80's called aids that took away her daughter and son-in-law. Just to name a few.

Old has nothing on her soul.

She stands there in the hallway, her broom in hand, physically frail, but her mind is another story. The woman is nearly gone, but her memories live on, confirming my fear that the worst things in life you will never forget.

She asks about my boyfriend and how our first year of cohabitation is going.

"You're a good girl, and you love each other right?" she asks.

It's the one million dollar question, the one that all of the elderly residents in this complex ask me nearly every time they see me. After all the struggles I've suffered though as an immigrant - impossible legal documents, isolation, mean looks, and cruel behavior, love has never been quite enough to keep me happy here. And yet, they ask me, as if in the end, it's the only thing that matters.

I'm skeptical.

But maybe they know something we don't.

She's looking at me, without smiling, waiting for an answer. She's lasted this long, and she's lost everything, but she still thinks there's hope for us.

"Yes, we do," I nod, "very much."

"Good," she says, and for now it's enough.

In a way, I wish this moment could go on longer because I know that once she disappears behind her door, I may never see her again, and she'll never know that I care about everything she has been through, even though I don't know her. We say goodbye to each other and leave, each behind creaking doors - me in the elevator, and her in her apartment, both of us unwillingly, but forced, to face another day alone.




5.27.12
(conceived July 2011)

Heartbeat

This time when I look at you you're far away, the farthest you've ever been from me.
off somewhere in your little part of the world,
behind hills and winding roads,
behind the sea,
and a volcano rumbling deep in the background.
This time I look into your eyes and see only pain,
glistening like glass,
your heart beating,
softly begging
for some kind of answer.
but all i hear is silence
from heaven
and emptiness
echoing
where there should be life.





09.18.11

Goldfish

Keeping people at a distance is an art.  One that takes at least twenty years of practice.  I know this because I am 20. And I have mastered this art.  That isn't pride in my words.  It's loneliness.

Chances are, if I ever said I'd love you forever, it all faded in the end.  The love didn't melt away, but I did.  The duration of the love didn't matter anyway - If I loved you for only a second, I'm sure I chased you away.

I thought about this as I sipped cheap coffee that tasted like gasoline.  It was seven in the morning and I was in the main indoor foodcourt of my giant university.  A place that is always crowded and sweaty with people every hour of the day, every day of the week.  But not this day. It was summertime and school wasn't in session.  Nobody was there.  Except me.  I put my bag down on a small round table, and rested on a wooden bench against the wall.  The lighted restaurant signs glowed faintly. I looked at all the empty tables and chairs. I was alone.  And then a realization struck me: If there were a million people in that room, I'd feel exactly the same.

You must have seen me running.  I'm always running.  Not away from something, but to something.  I just don't know what it is yet.  Maybe you tried to run after me.  I never forget the people that do.  They're always beautiful.  I'm sorry I didn't stop for you.  

I don't really know who I am these days.  There are few things I know to be true about myself.  And most of them aren't very profound -

I like the rain.  I think miracles happen when it rains.  I like moving down a man's body and kissing the trail of hair that starts from under his belly button and leads to you know where.  I like feeling his eyes watching me as I do this.

I love anticipation.

I eat carne asada on my french fries and drink my milk through a straw.  It's because I like blowing bubbles until the glass overflows with white foam.  It makes me smile.  Like a child.

I laugh when I'm nervous.  I've spent most of my life laughing.

I'll always be that awkward girl in the corner who has a secret that nobody wants to ask about. The one who would steal your boyfriend if she thought her cleavage was impressive enough.  That's me.  And then I'll tell you I'm not superficial.  Everyone says that.

I'm probably not your ideal girlfriend.  I'm that beta that stares at the side of its bowl and fights its own reflection.  That's why I keep running.  I can barely take care of myself so how could I take care of you?

When I was a little kid I drowned my goldfish.
Yeah, I don't get how it happened either.

So much of everything is uncertainty. Maybe all I want is not somebody who will chase me or stop me from running.  Maybe what I want is someone to run with me.  That's really what love is.  It's not about your sexy sports car or your celebrity status.  It's about your courage.  And a comfortable pair of running shoes.

If you're brave enough, don't ask me to slow down.  Just find me and we'll run and run and run.  To the edge of the earth.  Or something incredibly corny like that.  There is no guarantee that you'll ever catch me because I may never find what I'm running to.  However, I'll leave you with this little window to my heart:

Meet me under the city lights.  I like running at night.


8.16.06