Late One Evening

we’re a beehive nurtured by vanity

Late One evening:

1.

Late one evening I locked eyes with someone. I sensed a smile coming from behind the window shade or perhaps a grin. I laughed to myself. Clouds were absent from the sky. I was absent in my mind; wandering inside the gray apartment complex.

The nearby park was a shelter, not to me but to society. I sat there thinking: we’re a beehive nurtured by vanity. I sat thinking of all I had demanded that evening, without asking for a single thing. It was a hollow feeling to have desired something. I wondered why longing comes from such solitary places.

I didn’t sleep that evening, but sat pondering on a bench. I crafted stories of the woman behind the window shade, entire timelines and told them to myself again and again. It worked as an antidote to sleep, but also numbed my senses; I had never felt something so intensely which wasn’t real.

2.

Late one evening a young man smiled to me right as I closed off the window shade. I felt poisoned by curiosity thinking of who he’d might be, where he was heading and where he had gone previously. It was overwhelming; I don’t wish to ever look someone in the eyes again. Longing’s a dangerous game for loneliness isn’t death and too much living kills the spirit.

I keep a safe distance from the city, I cling to the inside of my apartment — the window’s my portal to the cinema of the the streets: everyday stories never told but felt all the same. I feel the weight of the world, not taking part of it.

I feel blessed to see life through a veil. Life was meant to be felt, not explained I feel. So I extend my gaze, gathering visions in a spiritual haze. Days and days I sit wandering, with my eyes closed; if I had been born blind I would have understood. If I had been born dead I wouldn’t have to cry thinking about you, you curious creature, you little figure walking down the sidewalks.

Cover art: The Girl by the Window by Edvard Munch, 1893