twitchy lids

Today I drank espresso, over ice, till my fingers and my tongue jittered and my eyelids peeled open. Today I saw her at the door and backtracked to say hello. She's only been back here a week, she says, but she's trying to figure it out still. I nod. Cities are hard, I say. I love Chicago, and I hate it. Yeah, they are, she says. She looks solid and beautiful and strong, but her eyes are always worried, like mine. Sometimes on my happiest days strangers stop to cheer me up because I look too sad when I squint in the sun.

I worry too hard about all these lost-eyed girls, about these boys who try and drink themselves far away.

I feel helpless without my contacts in because everything blurs and I can no longer interpret the lines in their faces. Sometimes I like it better that way. (Sometimes i wonder which of us is more real. Sometimes I don't.) His hair is a blessing. Her high heels are a disguise. There are black smudges on my calves and my thumbs and my forehead. I am feeling the pavement through the cracking soles of my shoes. I am tiring of block letters and dark sunglasses. Our lists grow shorter; the days grow longer.