i take the elevator to the top floor, after a questionable sideways glance from the doorman.
yeah i know it's late. in fact, you have no idea how late.
"i guess he was expecting you" he says with said sideways glance.
i think: he expects a lot, but has no idea who i am.
i reach the 22nd floor & walk into this glass palace overlooking the charles. overlooking a city that was my home for so long.
i've never felt so displaced. the city itself like an ex-lover i'm trying to be "just friends" with. & then here he is. such a familiar stranger.
here i am on the 22nd floor of a past life like a faded photograph taken from a perspective that isn't actually mine. like when i hold the camera over my head to get an angle my mere 5'2" height won't allow.
& i think, so this is what it looks like from up there huh?
as far from paradise & fourth as you can possibly get. it reminds me of fancy hotels i've stayed in, or that time my dad took me up the top of the pru because i always wondered what it was like "up there"
so this is what it's like "up there" huh?
& everything else becomes a blur of familiarity & confusion & words. his proclamations of passion & love & desire & intimacy.
the words lodged in my throat after scrambling frantically around in my head, still desperate for an out. a fire escape. or a little sign that say "in case of emergency exit here"......what would it feel like to free fall 22 floors. what would it feel like on my naked shivering body, all 5 foot 2 of it.
he wants to know what i'm thinking. how i've felt about it all. i mumble something about unfulfilled potential. about disappointment & indecision.
it's not until later i want to scrunch up my features up & scold him like a child.
oh you misunderstood, my invitation for depth wasn't dependent on your romantic availability. oops, i've been operating under the assumption that others make the distinction between intimacy & romance. how foolish of me.
