Our Windows
lovervore
I loved the words he used. Monkey, Leo as verbs, all the random silly things that made my stomach tingle. I wanted to know his world. My biggest vice is my curiosity about people, even the closed off ones. Like Mitski singing in Your Best American Girl: he represented a world I thought I longed to have. The effortlessly fitting in, the cool, simple, carefree American lawn-clipping-scented suburban childhood. Humor with no curveball, candid and blunt like the grid city planning for fast cars I walked my entire coming-of-age. The way he seemed to not feel much when feeling so much feels like a curse sometimes. Just walk up to the court and drill the ball with the boys.
People say what we love in others are things we wish we can love in ourselves. To love is to have capacity. To love someone different is to have capacity and imagination. I, too, want to shout at the rock that pokes the bottom of my feet and declare the word “posh” is not real. Why? Because I say so. How boyish. Not exactly the wide-eyed kind, but charming nonetheless.
This morning, a magpie flew into my flat. It got stuck searching for an exit on the wrong side of the window. Slightly to its right, there was a window wide open. That’s how close and far away love feels to me sometimes. Only if we could just see what we could not see. Him and I looked into each other’s eyes and mirrored fear instead of curiosity in a completely open-ended story. Can you love someone who thinks through a different window as you? Yes, but then, the ability to see each other and our windows, isn’t that, I ask, love? Isn’t that, I pray, the basis of all true connections? Do you have some space by your window, can I squeeze in? Because I’d like to sit down and look with you – at you.
Words seem to lose their meaning the moment he starts speaking. I cannot explain how I am telepathed into the vibration of his throat. Love begins with speaking and making sounds. Begging to be uttered through each other, we kiss. I want to hear his voice on the phone though I’m not sure it’s his voice I hear or just my head making it so sweet.
Love,
Erica x