Paper Drabbles

Dissolving on a hot pink tongue

Into beads sugary sweet

A taste that can hardly be recalled

It is all gone

Sharp inhale, awake from dreaming

Sleep drunk and sweating

Sheets cling to bare skin

Where does it go

The swarm flies from the tree

Sand seeps through fingers

And the bottle floats out to sea

Leaving no trace

But the dull ache of a forgotten thing

Did I leave the stove on -

Did you ever love me -

How many others have prayed for this very plight?

To lay, and play, and hold each other long past noon,

And laugh and make love long into the night.

14 days and 14 nights, the world has stopped for us.

A time to truly cherish what money cannot buy,

A time when leaving work and classes is a must,

And the only responsibility is to help the time pass us by.

How forunate are we, in love and still healthy?

To be confined to this unfortunate opportunity?

But alas, you’re not here in this dreamy quarantine,

Because at the worlds end, you no longer love me.

Was like baby teeth

That I thought I needed

And when lost, I realized was temporary

Your love

Like bath water

Embraced me so warm and tight

But grew icy cold with the passing hours

Your love

Like grains of salt

Resembled something so sweet

But when mixed in, ruined the batch

Your love

Like blood in my veins

But a different type than mine, clotted

I was logic based, stony faced

Then filled with something between distaste and hate

A need to dull the cold dark ache

Even if they don’t reciprocate, taste.

And here I am in a different place

Suddenly a sorrow more vast than space

Our star exploded, our story erased...

I throw myself at... on... in

Begging for comfort shaped like skin

“What if I never love again?”

Between running away and shouting “LET ME IN!”

The feelings I have are undoubtably sin

I’ll make a muse of this reflection.

Always the worshipper, never the worshipped.

I’ll lick the praises like honey from your lips.

Take your shoes off, you’re on holy ground.

Kiss me from my feet to my crown.

I’ll be your vice, or nothing at all.

Call me your baby girl or don’t bother to call.

The bathroom balcony window

Yes, bathroom balcony

And inhale crisp cold air

That will not be as cold until the sun sets again

And I see all the

Big windows

Where little lives are on display

A city dollhouse

Glass checkerboards of apartments

Where people do not mind who sees them

Transparency in all things

And as I brew my coffee in the morning

Like clockwork

The man across the street stands

On his balcony, shirtless

Sucking the life from a cigarette

Combing his hair back lazily

Subconsciously I tilt my mug to him

And am alarmed when sometimes

He almost seems to see me through my own

Giant pane of glass

And I digress to the roof

Where the entire city unfolds

Waking with puffs of smoke and

Ambulance wails

The smell of coffee from the cafe five stories down

From my perch I see a mother

Herding her one child

With the effort of a herd of goats

To get them ready for school

And I hear people already yelling

Surely cursing the noise of the day

Cursing the morning groans Berlin makes

Awaiting the day

And I know that at dusk I will sit

In the same spot

And watch the same mother

Washing dishes as her husband

Croons over her neck and attempts

To kiss her as she cleans

And once

I even saw them dance

Their kitchen floor a ballroom

And I wondered

Where their little girl had gone

Or if she too watched

Unaware that she was seeing

True love

And it bothers me

That I cannot tell if the man

Who sits on his computer

The next floor down

Is engrossed in work or play

His screen-lit face so solemn

Never once seeming to look out the window

How could he be lonely

Only a pane of glass away from

Thousands

And as I make my evening earl grey

And dusk falls

I will watch the same man

Across ChausseeestraBe

With the pension for cigarettes

Cutting men’s hair in his home salon

And shaking the hair off the apron

Over the street below

As my water boils

He finishes the exchange, and says goodbye to the man

And turns out the lights

And comes out to the balcony

Shirtless, to smoke an evening cigarette

And I am guilty of spying

Or simply admiring what wonderous creatures

What careful laid loves

All exist in a single block

Of a single city

And maybe I imagine I can see the glow of his cigarette

But I do not think I am imagining

That he also sees me

Creature of habit

Is everyone’s mind as detailed as this? That they can recall a moment in the past with enough sensation and enthralling wholeness that it seems relived?

I can still feel the pinpricks of rain on the rooftop of our flat in Berlin, and smell coffee from the neighbors kitchen, and hear the sound the echoing hallway made when the door to the apartment building was opened with the magnetic fob. I can feel the heat of the subway as it races, and remember the exact details of the face of the Romanian beggar named Danny who I hugged almost every morning at Naturkundwe museum.

Why does this hurt so much? To remember these things? Why do I feel my heart ache so badly. Something must be wrong with me.

I can remember the individual mornings, hearing my roommates breathing in their sleep as I rose and looked out over stirring city. I can taste the oatmeal I ate every single day, and remember my best friend’s face who I never even talk to anymore when he told me good morning in a language that belonged to neither of us.

I can feel the cold steel of guitar strings on my fingers, when I played horribly on the balcony but felt tears running down my face because I was thinking about God, and home, and family.

I can feel it all.

I remember the frosted glass shower, the cold spring air, the smell of the cheap perfume I bought, the terrible instant coffee.

I can see the flats across the street, and the jagged, geometric skyline. I remember the man who was an in home hair stylist, and who smoked cigarettes on his balcony without a shirt. I remember wondering if he could see me as clearly as I saw him. So much glass.

I am lost in the meaning of meaningless memories. I am taken aback by how the pain me. By how I can’t express them properly.

I secretly smile at the few times I wandered around alone, sacred days that were few. When I bought a beer and some vodka and sat on a park bench or in a train and was a stranger in a strange city with nothing to do but enjoy being alive.

I still can feel the cold sand running the through my fingers and squishing between my toes, every Friday beach volleyball game. Beach volleyball in the middle of Mitte, a landlocked suburb of Berlin.

I have sad thoughts, about the love that I let myself feel for people who did not feel it for me. I have pain for the relationships lost. The brothers and sisters that are now nothing but names I never say.

Or his blue eyes, as they manipulated me. Confused me.

The zoo we called a park, the scribbles in my journal. Him playing the uke. You and her falling in love.

Drinking earl grey tea, watching movies at night, fighting for a good seat. Oh how foolish we were.

Sweeter, surer still,

Than the way his fingers plucked strings,

While I stared sadly out a window.

Wistfully, as in a tower,

The outer world of a city, unknown,

Calling to me to jump.

Through bay doors,

Off the balcony,

To fall past the stories of wine drinkers,

And flee into the streets.

I begged for another song,

To drown my sadness.

To ease my anxious.

To soothe the beast.

Perhaps this is why,

He wrote so many,

unsuspecting lullabies.

For my restless heart.