cotton blue

I sit in silence and watch the blue cotton dress cling to her body. I pretend to have a reason to look in her direction and she plays along with the pretend as my eyes drink her in. She is beautiful and slightly flirtatious. I know I don’t have a shot and am content for this to be all fun and games, although a starving man dreams of prime rib he’ll settle for crumbs falling from the table. I watch her walk out of my life onto her next adventure. I return to my walls where I make sure no one knows I am home. I hide from the hotels, the hospices, the hot spots, the stories that I use to live but now avoid the hurt that comes with human contact. They were never my friends. My phone never rings and there are never any messages and I take solace in my solitude. It is like a soothing balm, a stereophonic simplicity, a surround sound of silence. Outside noises make me peek through blinds; I’m a peeping tom on the exposed world taking joy in my voyeurism, the invisible man. They are oblivious to my viewing and I am entertained yet want no part of their pain, problems and lies. A quick tort with my hand and I forget all about the blue dress and the hours she would strip from my solitude manipulating me until she got the desired behavior modification that would make me more tolerable. I don’t want to be tolerable; I want to be unnoticed; left to roam the rooms with all the lights off, safe in the camouflage of no one home. I own nothing anyone would want to steal, no T.V., stereo, computer. I want no contact with the outside world, but if someone tries to break in I carry my pistol in my hand at all times, walking around naked, going from blinds to blinds, safe, secure, alone.

 

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