Acquaintance - July 21, 2010

    I met you at a dinner party, she was my best friend and she loved you; she wanted me to meet you. I thought you were pretentious and I didn’t like you or the way you talked about the world. I would never confess this though, my opinion mattered so much to her and she was unusually happy with you; I didn’t want to ruin it.

    I ran into you at the supermarket once, we exchanged awkward hello’s and you looked into my cart with your Bettie Davis eyes. Canned Soup, dry roasted peanuts, lilac hand lotion. I could tell you were thinking: unremarkable, normal. I looked at your food basket, organic fruit, recycled toilet paper, and fair trade coffee. Even by means of stocking refrigerators, you were more attractive.

    You liked wine, and more specifically, you liked to discuss wine. You were happy, complacent…I couldn’t compare, I wouldn’t try.

    Once, you were drunk at her place and you fell asleep on the sofa. I sat next to you, uncomfortable, because I could no longer be on my feet (we had been dancing the night before, my limbs always ached for miles). I could smell your New Zealand Pino Noir breath in the air, practically see the zzz’s drifting from your open mouth. You slept as normal people sleep and this surprised me. Then I noticed, from where I was sitting, that your nose was slightly crooked and your eyebrows were uneven.

    When you awoke, I shut my eyes and let you think I had been asleep too. Though I still didn’t like you, I didn’t want you to feel embarrassed. You could have been snoring, there could have been drool dripping from your mouth. I wondered if you were studying my face just then. If you were looking at my flaws and my features. As the weight on the couch shifted and you stood up, I heard you mutter,

“Pale…”

    The other night I had a dream, I was invisible. I was drifting around the world, watching private scenes unfold and I was blissfully, happily content. I went to places I would never be seen in, I observed the world with no fear. I stood on a terrace in the evening and overlooked the city below me, the low lights fading in the distance. There were people of different nationalities, different ages, genders,  and religions all around me- unaware I stood there just as predominant as ever but unseen, unacknowledged.

    I turned around and you were there. Only you could see me

-Kortnee Tilson