today

today I'm at work. It's too quiet. The Muzak is playing some top 40 song, set to, it seems, a xylophone. I remember as a child, learning to play the xylophone, along with the other instruments - recorder, drum, and triangle. Even at a young age, I remember wondering "who will want to play a xylophone all day?" Finally, I had my answer...the musician banging away on the Muzak blaring through the sound system at my job.

Besides the sound of, Lady Gaga (I think, the music so different without words, and real instruments), I hear nothing. No phones ring. No voices speak. Just the Muzak and me typing on my computer.

Was there a memo, voice mail, email to everyone telling them to leave for the day? Impossible. I am the one the bosses talk to about such matters. Normally. But what if today was different, today they decreed it the day to leave early. Only they forgot to tell me. Was I in the bathroom when they announced it? Was I at the coffee pot? Copy machine? Lost in my thoughts?

Another strange thing, I realize, as I re-read this post...there are no sounds outside. We typically hear cars, honking, tires screeching. Sirens, blaring, insistent, screaming. Voices shouting. But again, there's nothing outside I can hear...

Am I lost in a dream, sitting at my desk, typing away, listening to Taylor Swift playing on the triangle and recorder as Muzak interprets her latest breakup song? Has my hearing failed me, suddenly as I type away at my computer? Or am I concentrating so hard that extraneous things have dropped away?

I won't know until I leave my desk.

"you have some great descriptions"

He told me in a letter, the other day. A real letter, handwritten and sent in an envelope. Something that never comes anymore, in my mailbox. A real letter.

I have great descriptions and characters and stories. Which is ironic, because the thing I want most is him. The writer of this letter. I want HIM to appear at my doorstep, his smile to greet me, his shadow to overtake me. Instead I have his letter.

I can't seem to stop, reading his letter. Trying to forge out meaning from his compliments. *sigh*

What he doesn't understand, what he doesn't quite say, is that I wrote great descriptions about us.

Security

I'm alone today, standing at the window, watching the sun blinking in the sky. Inside my condo, the air is blowing on my arms. I need to move away from the window, or at least turn down the a/c.

I watch you park your car, in the lot, behind my building. You don't know it. I watch you look up, towards my window, shielding your eyes, so you can see me standing there. But you can't see in.

I turn away from the window, go to the bathroom to put on my lipstick. My hair is a disaster, but you like it that way. I will never understand why that is.

I turn off the light, gather my things, and wait for your knock at my door.

I'm always a bit surprised to see you standing there. Big and tall and strong. Something in me relaxes, I don't need to worry, you're here.