One Page #4

I want to put into words how much I hate you. No, that isn’t quite right. I don’t actually hate you, I just rather loath you in this moment. And we laughed into the wind. We were standing hand in hand on the rooftop of a mile-high apartment building in the middle of the city. The traffic below was so far away we could barely make it out, so we pretended we were in the desert with sand blowing in our faces, our chins lifted up to the sky. We leaned over the edge, chests out, hands held high, and bellowed out our sorrows to ears that we only imagined were there but were in fact so consumed with the bustle of the city life that no a single one could hear us. We gave up shouting words and moved on to shouting sounds, playing with how we could move our mouths around, our lips and tongue around, to make different noises. And then we looked at each other and laughed and all of my self proclaimed hatred, or loathing, disappeared. It was just us now, two beings that felt each other. The blue of her eyes faded into the blue of the sky and I could almost imagine that her eyes were holes in her head leading all the way through so that I could see the sky and the inner workings of her brain in the dark tunnels that paved their way from one segment of sky to another segment of sky. Her hair flapped in the wind and I grabbed a fistful and twirled it around my hand and wrist and up to my elbow it was so long. It was so long I though maybe I could weave a rope ladder so I could climb down the side of the building and never have to go indoors again. I could walk and walk forever down the city streets and out to the desert holding her golden hair wrapped around my arm as if I were carrying a shield before me, protecting me from whatever came in my path. She would stand on the top of the building and watch as her hair drifted away from her, watch as I held her hair up before me like a shield, watch as I disappeared into the dunes blowing sand into my face.

Only then, just before I fell over the rise of the dunes, would I look back and squint through the glare to see her face, following the trail of hair all the way back to her figure standing still on the rooftop. I would wave, and she would wave and I would no longer hate or, loath her. Over this incredible distance, we are still linked together as two beings with the grasp of hair intertwined over, around and through my arm. I cannot hate or loathe someone who stays connected to me over such a distance. Even though we cannot speak to each other, we cannot hear each other, we can touch and we can know that we are interlocked in an embrace that crosses all distances.