Emily

Emily,
our walled meetings are frequent, but distant.
I, at my computer, open curtains, wondering -
how many cigarettes can a person possibly
have in twenty-five minutes, you:
wondering why I exhibit myself,
lights on
("lights off")

I remember the time you came over
Drunk
very Drunk
very together
very drunk-together
You sat on my cold wooden bedroom floor and gave me a demonstration of some badly dancing children (teenagers)
I loved it.
I was perplexed. I was shocked.
I found the shock perplexing and hilarious --
I laughed, frowned, listened, mostly...
I thought, "this is a repeat of the day I moved in,"
when you were a nuisance distraction from Mr. Horsfall across the hallway; my (many, as noted) things piled up around you (us) as if we were two strangers squashed unfortunately into a medium-sized storage unit, forced to make polite and obligatory conversation meantime, until rescued...

...exchanged only by a chance
reading of your thesis
bound in red
and woman
leaving spilt wine
on the carpet ...

Emily, Emily,

The light shining through the panes above your doorstep is
beautiful. Do I look as nice? In my lamp-lit bedroom,
changing into my sleepwear (or what
passes for it, as it blurs with the day),
imagining some company
taking notes
pouring thoughts,
ingesting the same
passing through savasanas (voluntary, induced and involuntary)
all to the soundtrack of your coughing, your poor throat's complaining.

Did you envision me the night I curled myself
foetal on the mezzanine, having eaten my stomach to
sweet dreams
convinced that this would now be my bed; my bedroom a dance floor...?

Did you envision the ropes slithering in from across the hallway, my imagining a summer in the middle of winter...? (The only one invited in, because he was here first. All others shut out, kept categorically separate. But those you can't see, Emily. I keep them from my bed. For it's mine and not theirs.)

What stories of mine do you have
that even I can't tell?
that I've lost to somatics
but you have recorded in sight?

Plenty, I'm sure.
And with this, I'm alright.