front steps

i sat on the front steps in a corner of brooklyn, too close to government housing to be "cool" but too close to hipsters to be really "scary". trying to read the pages of my new-used book. sun was warm, breeze was cold, & i was really hoping to embrace sunday afternoon.

except it was hard to focus on the words. my damn heart wouldn't be silent. so instead i give up. look up. i see you 5 houses down, also reading on your stoop but my glance keeps going. i think i hate that you can focus and i can't at the moment.

breathe. if you can't escape your head, you might as well live in it. dive into the moment. there's a story for all the souls sharing this corner of the world with me. i invent some, deduce others:

the two old men playing chess in the housing project gated yard a few sidewalk cracks to the left? they've been enemies since grade school. one traveled the world as a grip for a documentary filmmaker, but he's come home to care for his aging sister. the other lived a quiet steady life here on this corner for 76 years. he sacrificed to send all 3 kids to college, refusing so far to live with any of them despite their asking. with all the history and brutality of life behind them, they've made peace. & become a sources of intellectual stimulus & comfort for one another.

the mexican family next door is attempting an afternoon siesta, but little kids won't stop fighting. mom + dad look at each other with tired eyes & tired shoulders, wondering if there will EVER be a day these kids love each other. or listen, or take naps again? deeper wonderings of whether they'll make it, if this country wasn't a mistake...if they're really safer here than back home? lie unspoken.

the elderly Jamaican grandmothers below me are loudly arguing about the book they're reading. i can't tell if they all equally hate the book or if they all hate different parts? but the mixed accents create a rhythm within the english words that i could move to.

the barista across the street comes out to wipe down the tables next to the college student for the 32nd time this hour. (hint: nobody has sat at them since i came out here.) she's been saving & scraping for another trip, somewhere less wild than Morocco this time. maybe france? or poland? she loves her nomad life, but deep down she wonders sometimes if maybe she couldn't be happy settled down. like all her friends with college degrees and boys or girls they come home to at night. the blond student still doesn't look up from his laptop, totally oblivious. his small fluff dog can't *quite* reach the water bowl. she slides it closer with her foot, looks at the back of college boy's head and spins back into the coffee shop.

the guy reading is apparently having the same problem i am, because now his book is closed with chin in his hands like he's solving the worst physics problem. except we make eye contact, and he ducks his head so fast it hits his knee & i'm laughing. i wonder what back story he invented for the new white girl? with her ripped jeans & grey tank top too light for the wind, scuffed vans & hair messier than the G train stop one block south. i don't think anyone's ever given me a story before? but then joe is calling "you can NOT go out with me like that, you'll scare all the cute boys away" and i stand up to get pretty-ish. he finds his book & his bravery and looks back, so i wave when we make eye contact, turning into the doorway too fast to see if he waved back like some cheesy children's book.

i really want to know what i look like through another reader's eyes. readers, we all kinda write a little. with our too-deep intellects & our too-wide imaginations. but i'm only here another 17 hours.