I don’t eat meat but if I did I’d buy it from you. When you smiled at me on my first day in the neighborhood I did not smile back and I feel bad about that now but really, can you blame me? You are a butcher, a man’s man, a guy who deals with gory bits and bodies. Despite this, I hope you are good because I have begun to return your smiles and if you are not it might break my heart in a very specific way. I think it would feel something like a quick crush of the cavity; a meat mallet to the parts of me that want to give men a chance. You have one of those bodies that belong mostly to cartoons: potbelly, bulbous nose, knobby hands, and tired, twinkly eyes. You read like a caricature of kindness. I suppose this is what concerns me.
I noticed you because of your outfit: a Travis Scott concert tee tucked carefully into a kilt. This is one of the more confounding style choices I’ve encountered in quite some time, so if you see this? Please reach out. I would like to celebrate you.
It was rush hour and it was approximately ninety-eight degrees. I was sweating, stuck to the subway seat. You were elfinesque: well-dressed and delicate. Amidst the chaos, you sat with a dry brow and a sense of serenity. I watched you peel a satsuma singlehanded before slowly eating each piece. (Eyes closed, sweet surrender.)
You stepped out of the yellow cab in that old-person way: jerky and forcefully frail—defiant of the gravity that has curved your spine and bound you progressively closer to the earth. I had covered a shift that day. I shouldn’t have been on that bus. I don’t believe in fate but I do believe in meaningful coincidence and maybe that’s why I felt responsible when I saw you. Actually, I felt pity and I felt guilt and I know those are not productive emotions because my therapist has taught me well. Nonetheless, that is what moved through me when I watched you exit a cab alone in the parking lot of a Walgreens from my window seat on the bus. Where was your partner? Your children? Your friends? You looked helpless and I felt helpless and perhaps that’s projection (thanks again, therapy) but when I got home I cried over you and I suppose I have realized that I am only comfortable with the idea of solitude when it’s a choice.