Sunday Morning Solitude

i like how quiet it is out here at this cafe... the sunday morning solitudes people retreat to: books, journals, magazines, cigarettes... there's a space to remember myself, my own breathing. my mind feels lost, though, the moment i let it. my body, so far from the touchstones it craves. my heart, still so open, like a screen door swinging in the summer at the neighborhood block party. and this spirit--it's like a fly on a tomato that some big angry hand keeps trying to swat away. but it just goes on buzzing around, knowing nothing can really stop a fly from landing on a tomato. 

an old crush walks up. my neurons buzz with excitement--that illusive positive feedback loop that suggests someone might sleep next to me, wake next to me, run their fingers over my profile in the morning while i still dream, and then pull me close into their strength to remind me of where i am--alive, in a bed, with a lover next to me who also so desperately wants to connect, wants to feel part of something as familiar and primal as flesh on flesh. there is nothing crazy about this longing. there is nothing wrong with my body's pull toward life. 

but here i am. there is nobody really here but me. so on the days when i wake alone, walk to the cafe alone, sit at the table alone drinking my coffee and writing in my journal... on these days when my brain waves are subject to the torture of disappointment, i slip my sandals off one by one, right here in public on the back patio of desire. i slip my sandals off and let my toes touch down--that cold, hard stillness massaging the bottom of me like a mystery. 

how unfamiliar it can become--the thrill of something cold and sturdy holding you like when you first learned how to walk; when you first made eye-contact with the speed of solitude. 

i plant my feet a bit heavier now, letting each toe take its time reintroducing itself to that old, untouchable home. 

i plant my feet and i breathe.

nobody, nobody but me.