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Dance Steps for Lonely Chairs
she spent twelve minutes and 25 seconds talking about a dead guy whom she claimed held her heart in what was left of his little decaying hands. she had learned about him from a grade school level history book that was dressed up in the torn visage of yellow highlight monstrosity and ball point blue ejaculation. As if a grade school kid really had anything important in a textbook to highlight when the sky happens to reflect much more gracefully through youthful eyes than ink on paper.
i know the exact length of her speech because she has this habit of tapping her feet every few seconds when engrossed in conversation. like fucking clockwork. actually, to use the word conversation would be imprecise, her loose onslaught of words forces me into cowardly bomb-shelter positioning and it's not much of a conversation at all really.
Eventually i learned to juggle her eager communication into my peripheral senses for the better sake of my sanity. the truly wonderfull thing about this verbal mess of hers is the habit of exit displayed with each and every one of her empowered speeches. she has this kind of nervous ferocity that denies speaker and listener any kind of eye contact. said rituals were always a kind of out-of-body experience for her and while i kinda envied her glazed-over sleaziness, my typical reaction was to completely ignore her words and inhale her moon spun voice while counting her rhythmic tappings.
the darkness had us pinned against our daydream movements like saliva on pillows. sitting in our comfortably torn fabric lawn chairs (her idea), we rested our feet on the sleeping city landscape like mismatched ottomans.
we sat on rooftops, peeling off the tasteless layers of ugliness, worshipping the only light that we had like dirty-faced followers:
1) the blinking red light from a far off radio tower - protecting us like an urban lighthouse, sending red warnings through sleeping windows, mothering shipwreck remains on the rocky shores of town halls and tax collectors.
2) the sickly streetlight far below - burning low like acne blemishes on concrete faces
3) and the timid green glow toys we had collected (my idea) and had casually thrown around us on the ignorant city rooftop - an orphanage of glowing shapes coming from all sorts of broken homes, like breakfast cereal bottoms and couch cushion empires, each with a sad story of its very own.
2:23am attacked us suddenly with an uninspired gust of metal tinted wind. i watched as she parried the blow with a yawn.
it made my toes tingle.
the foot tapping stopped suddenly along with her dripping silver voice and i could feel her eyes on me. this is my que, i thought. my insightful input was being willed out of me by her big voodoo baby eyes.
12 minutes and twenty-five seconds i said as casually as i could.
there was a short silence following, inviting in only the soft hum of distant machinery.
you never listen to me do you?
no, not really.
more silence.
she repositioned her lawn chair away from me in a most exaggerated way and tried to impale me with rich-kid onomatopoeia.
hrummmphhh!
am i not interesting enough for you anymore?! she screamed as she kicked over her edible colored lawn chair.
it disappeared over the edge of the roof.
i knew that it had a chicago-sized grin on its face on its way down, like a soldier playing dead on the battlefield.
managing to dodge the death and violence in a cowardly way,
making fun of my predicament like the sinister little chair it was.
sugar baby, i said while securing her wiggling body with my hands,
just because i'm not listening doesn't mean i'm not hearing you.
don't start with that shit again! your fucking mystic car salesman whispering! give me a break already, just admit that i don't stimulate your mind anymore, okay!
she had tears in her eyes at this point.
i spent all that time.....what did you say? 12 minutes and 20 seconds?....
twelve minutes and twenty-five seconds, i corrected.
fuck you, i spent 12 minutes and 25 seconds talking from my heart, trying my hardest at being clever and world-weary and you have nothing to offer the following silence but twelve minutes and 25 seconds?! i'm like one of those dozer people from that fraggle rock show, working my ass off the entire episode, building a wonderful structure that can never be appreciated.
all because of you! the stupid fraggle who has no regard for all my hard work, who waltzes in and destroys my beautiful structure. ERRGGH........
honey elf, i said trying to calm her,
of course i knew that you were speaking from your heart.
i could hear it in your voice. it makes you sound like the most delicious thing i could ever have echoing through my insides.
she bit her bottom lip and dropped her head at an angle that made her soft brown hair charm the sides of her face.
i let my hand remind her face how soft and delicate it was.
you and i are on a level that cant be measured or rationalized, i said to her as i offered my chair to her.
i don't need your words to convince me how much i love you. i'm reminded how wonderful and intelligent you are with your voice alone.
it doesn't matter what you're rambling about, as long as your voice reaches me, i'm content. if i were to go deaf and never hear your words again, i would still hear you.
i'm always hearing you.........
we looked into each others eyes and studied the features.
then we broke out into tag-team laughter, threatening the foundation of neighboring buildings.
Honey-elf? she asked through a shaking mouth.
fraggle rock? i countered with giggled delivery of my own.
this was the first day that we've met, her and i.
and only the second time we've been face to face with each other.
we met on the subway earlier in the day and talked the casual meaningless bullshit on our way to different destinations. i was taking the green line to the blue, she was taking the green line to the red.
we were both green that day.
she had liked the fact that i wrote obscene sentences on my shoes.
i liked the fact that she noticed my shoes.
we talked about things that could never have enough world appeal to be published in modern magazines, we unbuttoned each others formality and threw them aside like porn stars would their paltry clothes.
for some reason, i cant recall why, we eventually began discussing how disgustingly cute it was for seasoned couples to pretend that they didn't know each other, simulating a first encounter experience in order to rekindle the old flame. we shared a laugh over the absurd ritual, a laugh that sent wandering molecules into oblong directions searching for gossiping corners.
and after 15 minutes of conversation, we decided to form an anti-dance in a single rebellious and swift motion. we were to meet 7 hours later at this rooftop and fake familiarity under the guise of a longtime couple. the kind of couple that needed the first encounter ritual.
its funny, but we don't even know each others names.
she suggested that we leave them out of our two-toned world. let them fondle themselves where ever they find themselves......without us.
she slowly moved towards me, eyes never leaving mine, kicking the other chair on her way.
it disappeared over the edge of the roof.
i had on a New York sized grin on the inside.
cause i knew it was frowning on the way down,
like the jealous little chair that it was.
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