It’s not romance I'm looking for, it’s the lack of decisions.
The setting is a subway. I have my book, the current one, wing-splayed on my knees, I am busily rummaging through my bag, making sure everything is in order, everything is where its supposed to be. I've been losing things lately, leaving important parts of myself scattered around. The weather is cold, it makes people scuttle about like city rats, hugging corners, twittering for warmth. I am no exception; today I was clear-minded enough to remember the hat and scarf, and both gloves this time, both of them with their fingers poking out of the pockets of my coat like an extra set of hands; something menacing and a tad bionic. Between my calves is my uniform in a plastic baggy, slightly balled. This job requires me to wear black, only black, like some sort of farcical joke about designers or else Europeans in general. I come to work everyday dressed head to toe, looking like either a pallbearer or else a Eurotrash clubgoer. And although I resent being instructed what to wear, which has the disadvantage of making you feel childlike and in need of being told how to dress, it is, admittedly, rather freeing. The uniform is like a haiku poem: within such strict confines, so much more freedom. Its the lack of thought that I like; the burden of limitless clothing options now gone.
Someone sitting next to me is looking at me. I can sense it with my peripheral....are they reading over my shoulder? Rude. A guy with a silver-speckled belt slung on too-tight pants. I look over, see the complicated hairstyle on his head which feels oppressive to look at, see the ornery expression underneath that I've now come to determine as flirtation, give my dutiful scowl back, bend my head back to my book. Not in a million years. Or more accurate: not in several years, not anymore. His presence next to me makes me feel old and outdated, too tasteful, too boring. Its the calculated coolness I hate, and the fact that I can watch him realign his abstract hair in the mirrored glass of the train when he thinks no one is looking. His sly vanity is disturbing, like watching a girl futz with her breasts in a mirror.
Across the way, oh god, its another one. They're all out today. He raises his eyebrows at me, his mouth curling into a smile on one side. He's trying for debonair but its unfortunate result is desperation. This one is older, skeevier, a little more downtrodden and pathetic than the last, its like watching a before and after of one person. This one has kept only small touches of his past life as someone cool, evidenced by the little glasses and the vintage army jacket. Under, a black button-up shirt covered in what appears to be dandruff. That's just what I'd want to sign up for- as if I don't do enough dusting as it is. Cross that one off with foot odor, or nose picking in front of the television, or stained underpants. A wave of bodily nostalgia, conglomerative over the years, a big heap of men in the proverbial corner that I can't sweep away. What if I'm so old now that there's no turning back? What if I know too much? If ignorance is bliss, then wisdom torturous.
Back to the book. The words come up and hit me in a wave, I try to concentrate on just one sentence, roll it back and forth a bit, rock in its message. She was pleased with the way it had turned out. Who was pleased? What had turned out? Go back. I must have skipped something. Whole paragraphs, flip the page, start all over. My mind had gone blank, I was thinking about something else. What had I been thinking about? Desire. What I desire. This need for something, I call it real but who is to say anything will be real, or rather, if I desire something real, has everything else been fake? Nonsense? Jibberish messages. Mixed signals. Crossed wires. Maybe that's what happened; maybe all of our wires were crossed and so nothing flowed between us. I picture electric shockwaves, fine translucent lightening bolts extended from our fingertips as we reached out, then quick zaps, followed by pink blot formations in our brains. Everything is visual, so why not our misfortune together? Why not our lack of chemistry? Love is Science. Afterall.
This is what I desire, from marriage, from men: the lack of decisions. I have been making decisions forever it seems, mainly easy ones- which color socks to purchase, 2% versus 1%- but also the hard ones, the difficult ones, the painful. I picture my parents in one of their eternal arguments, dishes rattling, palms slapping the table, all of that frustration, all of those hard choices. At 8, I desired a life devoid of this, and I suppose deep down, deep into the recesses where reality does not rear its painfully skeptical head, I still do. There are the days, the dark and lonely ones, where I will sit on a subway, surrounded by others and yet completely isolated, and picture each person as a future partner. Without realizing it, I stare into their faces, peering into them for answers to the questions I keep myself from asking too often. Today, the roles are reversed; its them peering into me this time, its them pondering their own options, the fillers to their voids. Not me, keep looking. Keep going, you'll find her.
It’s the stiff construct that I want, the freeing feeling of knowing one of life's hardest decisions has already been made, now on to other things! No more staring balefully into others, no more questioning. Done and done. Give me the tightness of one decision made, give me the structure to keep me up, keep me going. A person to grab the wheel before I absentmindedly steer over a cliff, someone to keep me upright, hold my hand and lead me away from the oncoming traffic. Someone to firmly say "Do this", something to keep me doing.
Within such
strict confines, so much
more freedom.
HAIKU.
