He hears her patient, excited breath through the receiver. 'Are you outside?' he asks her. 'Face North, look straight up. Do you see that really bright star just off the center of the sky?' She looks into the foggy San Francisco sky, barely able to see the apartment across the street, clouds so low that even though it's not actually raining, she sees small droplets of moisture collecting on her freckled knees. She closes her eyes 'Yes, I see that star you speak of.' 'Ok, now' he says 'go about two thumb widths to the left and up from that star-that really dim one above it.' 'okay' she imagines. 'that's where i'll meet you tonight' he tells her. Her whole body tenses and balls up in a smile on the front steps above the sidewalk in front of an eggplant door somewhere in the middle of a city she doesn't even know. She keeps her eyes closed tightly, and she can see his smile playful under blue eyes. 'Is it warm there?' she asks him. 'the most beautiful, warm beaches you ever saw, blue serene...' he trails off 'but it rains, too' she guesses. 'oh yeah,' she continues from her own vision 'the kind of rain that's warm and light and smells like jasmine'. he laughs and she can hear his smile through her purple, metallic phone. saying the words 'i love you' over a receiver is so different and makes so little sense when compared to the way those words taste on the tongue when faced with the victim right in front of the eyes. 'i love you' becomes not a simple phrase, not a string of words laced nicely together, but instead another form of a kiss, a verbal love making, a dance of the lips and the tongue clacking together, felt initially from somewhere deep inside the body, creating sound waves often accompanied by the baring of teeth into a wide, goofy smile. An audible dance. The phone strips this dance of its beauty and all the truth behind those words, those words that are often so visible and rarely need to be said. Love is too magical to allow a simple butchering through a transmitter than can never lift those words and let them feel the warmth of the sun on their cheeks.
created july 6. 2009
