As I Am

                I watch everything.

            I watch life pass by slowly, painfully unaware, and exhilaratingly fast.

            I see the leaves that grow and fall, the trees that stretch and bow, the coming of colors and the vanishing of warmth. It is all there, laid right in front of me. To learn and to study, to enjoy and to suffer through.

            I catch the mailman, with his grey hair and neat clothes. I know of his eccentricities. Of how time must be precisely counted before he arrives, and perfectly measured before he leaves. Of how he takes careful steps around the crisp, breathing grass in order to feed his opalescent shoes, untouched by the thing that is nature, that is beauty.  I do not understand him, for what is the point of safety from something so innocent?

            I keep a close gaze on the children that run rampart in the cold street. I memorize their games and their taunts, their words and their voices. I see them run past cars and gardens, horde toys and daylight. Their throats and hearts and innocence fill the air and decorate the ground. They are the future.

I observe the two kinds of mothers there are: the ones that hide behind kitchen counters, hoping, praying, clutching at blind trust, while they clean dishes, put faith in the fact that their children will come home safely, and decide to keep a door between them. And the ones that step out of their walls to be there, to follow and to protect, to learn what it is like to be a real mother. The ones that have surrendered and let themselves care for the names that matter.

I have memorized the tracks and trails of the animals that whisper by the trunks of the oaks and birches and maples. The felines that prowl the trash cans, like the thieves of everything forgotten, eyes alight in the night. The dogs that wearily survey the visitors who come to invade their territory. The birds that nest in the entrails of the trees and fly to a place I cannot reach with my sight.  

I count the cars, I collect the leaves, I wither slowly away, and am revived again and again. Endure the storms, tremble through the winter, rejoice the spring, and break the wind. I do it all.

Life goes on. I am here to watch it.

But then, there’s her.

She walks across the house at the end of everyday, with sun-lit hair and steady strides. Her hands close in around the doorknob of this house, and then she is inside, inside it all. I listen to her footsteps, her shoes hunting on the tiles. Even her scent clings onto the drapes, the pillows, the covers and blankets.

She is everywhere.

Playing the piano with the fingers that fill my wanderings, gentle, caressing, pale fingers that dance across keys, make the music that reaches every corner of every room. I shiver with the notes, feel them travel along my body, seducing me.

Then, she’s cooking, taming the spices and the herbs until there is a docile meal on the table and an aroma that clouds my gaze.

She takes note of the TV, sighs through the news, laughs through her favorite shows late at night, her delicate feet tucked underneath her tender, seaside legs.

With each mar that she imprints on this house, she pronounces it hers. With each broken plate, ripped cloth, stain on the carpet, this home succumbs to her will and her spirit.

And she is everything.

When she is happy, when her lips glow with fire, when her cheeks burn red, I want to touch and learn. I want to be there, alongside her, in the light of the day and the trees. A sense that I do not know of.

When her eyes are faraway, clear and lost, when her hands are tucked deep in her coat pockets and her gaze follows nothing, I wish I could ask her what holds her thoughts, where her mind travels to. A world unopened.

When there is nothing but a grimace on her expression and a clench to her fingers, like a set trap, I climb onto a mountain of resentment for the lack of my usefulness, of soothing words and solutions.

When her step falters, when there tear tracks ravage her face and dark shadows cross her eyes, I despair, because I cannot be there to say the things she yearns for, the understanding and the acceptance.

And when she touches me, when her fingertips  dance on my limbs, I feel my whole being bending and breaking, straining to keep her there. Because I know I live. I know it. I know that the meaning of life is love. That to live, you must love, and to love, you must live. She is the one I see reflected on my entire body. On my thoughts, my questions, my fight to be something else.

But then, I can hear my fantasies and dreams shattering to the ground beside me.

Because that is not possible.

Because I am what I am.

A window.