Eye For An Eye

I counted the floors up and down, last night--and the night before that. I stood outside your building and did some matters of multiplication, connecting the dots between the windows with yellow lamps and the ones merely illuminated by the moonlight.

It wasn't warm out here on the street corner and I was fairly certain that my tangerine coat made me stand out to the others in your building. I could tell they thought me desperate, what with my hair that hadn't been washed in two days and my very worn copy of The Fountainhead. The book meant something back then and I was certain that carrying it around like my purse would make me more appealing to you and you alone.

Imagine my dismay when I learned you were illiterate out of circumstance. I saw you nearing the clarions but still laid in brick. There you were, twenty one up and seventeen across. You sat there in the window, touching the curtains and feeling your way around until you found comfort in your powder blue love seat. You breathed a sigh of relief when the white silk curtains brushed up against your finger. I knew that you knew you were in the right place, at least for that evening. And the complexity of your austerity made me adore you all the more.

I couldn't take my eyes off of you, and with each passing night, you unknowingly broke my heart because I knew you could never look at me the same way.

We had some misplaced cards, you and me. Life is some kind of blackjack dealer, I thought to myself. And all I could hope for is that tomorrow with a stacked sundown, we wouldn't both be down for the count.