To Touch You
I can't help it - I touch people. I think I always have, but recently, in this city jammed full of people, I can't get enough.
Nobody's yelled, nobody's jerked away, but then again, nobody else does it. Italian men with traveling backpacks ask me for directions to M street and I touch them gently on the arm, unified as we are in geographic ignorance.
Buses are the worst for me - I'm a secret bus cuddler. Not necessarily with my body or my hands, but with my eyes.
Somehow, plugged into the beanPod, I allow my lazy eyes to roam and rest, taking in details that are not mine to know: the curl of hair against a nape, the spread of toes for balance, the huddle of a shoulder to define personal space. How I love humanity.
I am aware, of course, that left stranded on an island with 95% of these people, I would remorselessly kill them for my own survival (not for food, you see, but because they were so exceedingly annoying).
However, anonymously on the bus, I am allowed to open small doors and plug into this subsurface humanity. I look at grizzled jaws and dead, soft eyes and think: once you were loved, once you were cherished, and here you are in this tall, square world where no one knows your name anymore - how did your mother love you, can I see the mark of it on your skin? Do you remember a time when life was soft and round and you were safe, safe, safe?
Nobody's yelled, nobody's jerked away, but then again, nobody else does it. Italian men with traveling backpacks ask me for directions to M street and I touch them gently on the arm, unified as we are in geographic ignorance.
Buses are the worst for me - I'm a secret bus cuddler. Not necessarily with my body or my hands, but with my eyes.
Somehow, plugged into the beanPod, I allow my lazy eyes to roam and rest, taking in details that are not mine to know: the curl of hair against a nape, the spread of toes for balance, the huddle of a shoulder to define personal space. How I love humanity.
I am aware, of course, that left stranded on an island with 95% of these people, I would remorselessly kill them for my own survival (not for food, you see, but because they were so exceedingly annoying).
However, anonymously on the bus, I am allowed to open small doors and plug into this subsurface humanity. I look at grizzled jaws and dead, soft eyes and think: once you were loved, once you were cherished, and here you are in this tall, square world where no one knows your name anymore - how did your mother love you, can I see the mark of it on your skin? Do you remember a time when life was soft and round and you were safe, safe, safe?
posted by shagreen at 12:56 PM
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