I Feel Like A Curtain

As Soon As I Look Up, His Eyes Click Onto My Face. The Breath Whooshes Out Of My Body And Everything Freezes For A Second, As Though I’m Looking At Him Through My Camera Lens, Zoomed In All The Way, The World Pausing For That Tiny Span Of Time Between The Opening And Closing Of The Shutter.

We Are Such Small, Stupid Things. For Most Of My Life I Thought Of Nature As The Stupid Thing: Blind, Animal, Destructive. We, The Humans, Were Clean And Smart And In Control: We Had Wrestled The Rest Of The World Into Submission, Battered It Down, Pinned It To A Glass Slide And The Pages Of The Bool Of Shhh.

But From The Beginning, I Knew That In A World Where Destiny Was Dead, I Was Destined, Forever, To Love Him. Even Though He Didn't - Though He Couldn't - Ever Love Me Back.

This Is Pretty Much The Answer To Every Problem You Encounter In Suburbia: Plant A Tree, And Hope You Don't See Anyone's Privates.

Maybe He Sees It On My Face, That Fraction Of A Second When I Let My Guard Down, Because In That Moment His Expression Softens And His Eyes Go Bright As Flame And Even Though I Barely See Him Move, Suddenly He Has Closed The Space Between Us And He’s Wrapping His Warm Hands Over My Shoulders—fingers So Warm And Strong I Almost Cry Out—and Saying, “lena. I Like You, Okay? That’s It. That’s All. I Like You.” His Voice Is So Low And Hypnotic It Reminds Me Of A Song. I Think Of Predators Dropping Silently From Trees: I Think Of Enormous Cats With Glowing Amber Eyes, Just Like His.