The Beautiful Stranger

It’s a day. Like any other. But why does it feel so different? The city stre ets cling to aimless people leading their aimless lives. The earth turns slowly, but I can feel it. I can feel myself slipping away, defying gravity. I can feel her. I can sense her. She’s out there. But where? The car horns and the flashing neon bar signs fade out of time and mind unti l the city is an abstract labyrinth of white noise. The people are raindrops. Th e world is a poem. She beautiful, perfect, if only I could get more than a glanc e of her. Her face is an ivory porcelain, flawless in the noon sunlight. Cool gray eye s filled with life and story glimmer back at me. I am suddenly a child again, og ling in a toy or candy shop. But this means so much more… how can I contain such love and passion for a stranger, someone I had only glimpsed briefly in passing ? My hands are sweaty as I wring them fretfully, making my way through the str eets. Outcast. Nobody. Unrecognized. I meander through my door, for once relieved that I live alone. I am tired o f make-believing that I am happy. It is exhausting to pretend, day after day, th at no matter who I am with I am still not miserably alone. I hate putting on air s when I suddenly feel abandoned, rejected, lost. Those days when the world seem s to implode, when any spark of light is clasped within dark fingers, leaving no thing but phantom-like wisps of smoke. There is nothing quite like feeling as though you’re not good enough, like y ou’ve done something wrong so unknown and unintentional that it burns a hole str aight through your mind, your spirit, your heart. Being alone wouldn’t be half as difficult if it weren’t for all the ornately detailed memories that creep into your mind like thieves with a motive to purlo in the tangled remnants of your sanity. Memories are like bruises, they don’t hurt until something brushes against t hem, then you realize their taunting presence. I stare at the dusty white-washed walls; they stare back. My mind wanders to her again, and I wonder where she is, who (if any) is in her company, and if sh e notices me, another faceless member of the crowd, each time I cross her path. I wonder if she knows how beautiful she is, how all the happy thoughts, cheerful occasions seem to culminate wherever she stands. Can she ever know how my breat h seems to suddenly elude me when I spot her… so far from me, yet so near all at once. Who was she? Where did she come from? Why had she suddenly began to haunt my mind, every breath I took, every notion running through my brain. Until last week her face had been completely unfamiliar to me. But now it was all I could think of.