Or Maybe Not

When I wake up in the middle of the night, small hours glowing red in the dark -- in the dark, the air is thick, like something more substantial -- I roll over, stretch onto my back, and listen to the rain blow against the windowpanes. It's good to hear the air, like this; when the weather makes itself known, and the world outside shouts I Am Real, then 3:00am dark silence is like a blanket warmly wrapped around my shoulders instead of something else, heavier or sinister or hollow. (Then, maybe, there is something quiet but present somewhere inside of me that whispers back I Am Real, Too; most of the time, in daylight, I think I might be something less-than, something like a ghost, a whisper. Conceptual. A dream.)

He walked in while I was swearing at my computer screen, and thought that I was directing it at him, that he was too early and the envelope he had come for wasn't ready (but it was, sitting there on the counter, waiting, and I was only half-shouting at things that couldn't hear me anyway). And all the small shining bits of silver in his face could not entirely (could not even a little) distract the attention from his smile, and for a moment my brain melted completely. (But we should start over; I should have started over. To before explaining what I was actually voicing frustration with, to before saying anything at all. Walk through the door, and smile, and let me pause and tell you how intensely beautiful you are; let me reach out and touch your cheek, gentle. And then start time again, and the day can continue as it will; that was enough.)

Sometimes, in public places, when my gaze slides through the eyes of a stranger, I imagine being followed down streets, into an alleyway -- a doorway, a hidden nowhere sort of place -- and strangled, or stabbed, or shot. I think about the infinity of minute tenuous connections we weave our lives into every day (every hour, every inhale exhale pause), and eventually the numbers have to turn. It's nice to think that everyone has good intentions, but it isn't really true. How many strangers have I passed, or touched, or crossed; how many will I? If it's some innate sense, then I'm not tuned in enough to know, and if it's nothing more nor less than luck, or simple numbers...then eventually, they must add up, run out. (Sometimes, I wonder if I would recognize the moment just before, if I'd fight back.)

The problem with stories -- or with the ones I have to tell, or with life in general (I've lost track, anyway, of where one ends and one begins) -- is that there are never any clear beginnings. All of my stories are pure middle, endless in-between, and each time I think I've traced back far enough, I find another layer and have to keep peeling. I am mired in middles, sunk in deep and stuck. (Hardly surprising, then, this always-obsession with endings, with the idea of them. When you said, that one afternoon, that you were forensically aware, my pulse went racing -- anticipation, or relief, or some strange combination of things, but not pause. It is impossible to tell, to make any explanations; it isn't about action or lack of action or anything like that at all, but it's this notion of knowledge that can be cradled in your palm. I crave potentiality in everything; I need it like I need to breathe. And I can imagine your hand closing around my throat, and I can imagine not making any attempt at all to stop you.)