Sign Language

The metro guard sat down next to the boy, and under the guard’s arm was a stack of those blue, highly recognizable armbands. The ones that say “please show me your metro pass or I am going to fine you and if you don’t have the money on you right now I’m going to double that fine”. And the boy said to his friend “I want to steal one of those – what would happen if I stole one? I could just yank it out from under his arm right now and slip it on and wouldn’t it be hilarious?” and I understood every word even though I don’t understand his language. Maybe I understood him because they were speaking in sign language, or maybe I understood him because I was thinking the same thing.

Orion's Belt

I was walking and I was looking right in front of me and I was looking down and I was looking from side to side and it didn’t even occur to me that maybe I could look up. It was so cold I should have realized it would be clear out, but I didn’t, but then I looked up and the sky was full of stars. And it didn’t occur to me that the stars here would be like the stars at home, I thought the distance would change what I saw upstairs. I was looking down and I didn’t think that when I looked up I was going to see the same constellations I see at home. I tried to find the big dipper but my glasses kept sliding down my nose but there it was in the sky, I think it was off to my left, Orion’s belt. Even halfway around the world, his pants still won’t stay up. Those same three stars, the same classic, practical fashion accessory that I saw way up in the sky on every camping trip, every late night, clear-skied walk around the neighborhood.

This Box

I’m going to smash this fucking box. I take that back. I’m going to smash both of these fucking boxes. I’m going to smash the one that is marked with the figure of the girl in the dress, you know, the one from the restroom sign and I’m going to smash the other one, the one that’s marked with an angular figure standing with legs apart, the one from the other sign because while those boxes exist you’re not allowed to stand between them. No one will let you. I won’t even let you, because until I feel it for myself I can never understand what it feels like to look at those boxes and have trouble deciding which one I’m supposed to go in. Probably until the day I die I will crouch into the one marked with the girl in the dress with her legs chastely held together and I will shut the lid behind me and I won’t think twice and I won’t notice how fucking cramped it is in here. But while I’m sitting in my box wondering why I don’t care that my legs are cramping and that my lungs are yearning for fresh air, you’re standing outside glancing furtively from one to the other because one fits your body and neither fit the way you feel inside. So I am going to smash both fucking boxes, the one with the boy and the one with the girl and as much as I want to, I’m not going to pick up the pieces and build a new box because come to think of it, my back’s getting a kink from being curled up like this and why don’t you and I just lie down where the boxes used to be and stretch out our legs and you can wear a skirt and I can wear pants or maybe we can both wear skirts or just turn out the lights and in the dark it doesn’t matter what you’re wearing because all I can hear is your voice.

Getting Late

It’s getting kind of late, isn’t it? I mean, kind of late at night. It’s already morning, 40 minutes past it, in fact, and I’m walking up this cobblestone street wondering how many more times I’m going to do this. If it wasn’t so late, if I wasn’t so preoccupied I might figure out that I have so many days left in this neighborhood, in this city, in this country and at twice a day, minus the days I don’t make it home, that means so many walks up and down this street. It’s getting kind of late. I mean, late in this trip and I still haven’t done so many things I should do, wanted to do. I got here in August and it’s December now and if I close my eyes, if I even blink, it’ll be January and I’ll have already been home for a month and I’ll blink again and it will be next year and I’ll have forgotten exactly the way these cobblestones feel under my worn-out shoes, the length of the walk, the side of the street I walk down versus the side of the street I walk home, and how each feels different and it might as well be a different street, I experience it so differently. I’ll forget what it feels like to be in a crowded space, surrounded by people, but completely isolated because I can’t understand a single periphery conversation. I’ll forget the order of the metro stops and the tune it plays when the doors open and close. And I’ll always intend on coming back, now that I’ve come to know this city and made friends with it, but what if I never make it back?

No Proof

Proof: I know the answer. I’m sitting here with the answer in my head – There is a maximum number of 2n-14 triangles in an admissible triangulation of a polygon with n sides. And I know why, too. It’s because such a polygon can contain no more than n-6 interior vertices, and I found a correlation between the number of interior vertices and the number of triangles. But my answer is useless. It’s useless because I can’t prove a whit of it. But I have faith in my answer. I worked to find it, went on a pilgrimage to this test, swallowed my libation of burnt coffee, tortured myself with equations too hard to solve, like an ascetic of mathematics. And this is the answer brought to me, an answer I know in my mathematical heart is right, but I have no evidence or proof. No proof? Without a proof, I might as well not have an answer at all. A proof by induction, using a smaller case to induce a larger, general case. A proof my contradiction, assuming the exact opposite to prove what can not possibly be. A proof by brute force, knocking down all obstructions, meeting and vanquishing each special case with methodical accuracy. But I have none of these. No proof. I sit here with an answer on my paper, in my head, in my heart, clutching firmly to this belief I can explain, but can’t begin to understand why it can’t be. And I understand now why science and religion will never get along. Until God can give a proof for himself, presented with graphs, typeset and ended with a careful square, our mathematical minds will remain in disbelief. Without a proof we might as well not have an answer at all, might as well not have a God at all. ■

Someone's Thinking About You.

Jeremy touched my neck, the clasp of the silver chain that had slipped forward. “Someone’s thinking about you,” he said and he smiled and I wondered who would be thinking about me. Then I kissed you and then every time the clasp was in the front I knew it was you. You said “you think I’m only thinking about you when it’s in the front? No, every time it’s not exactly on vertebrae, I’m thinking about you.” Sometimes when the clasp slips forward I wear it like it’s another charm on the necklace, it makes me smile every time I look in the mirror. Sometimes when I’m mad at you and it’s not on my backbone I deliberately move it back and keep it there. But today it’s only moved forward once. Why aren’t you thinking about me? Is it because you’re thinking about her? Or are you just deliberately keeping me out of your head, focusing on other things?

Impasse

We are at an impasse. There is a destination that we can both see, a shining city whose lights are just visible over the edge of the horizon. But there are two roads that diverge just ahead of our car and we both have steering wheels and I tell you “what are you thinking? Why are you turning left? I’ve been down this road a hundred times, I know which way will get us there. That way will get us lost; it might get us there eventually but the streets aren’t marked and I think there might be road construction” and you say “but that way you are pointing us is so unsafe! The road is windy and against a steep cliff that has no guardrail! And it looks like rain and if it rains the pavement well become slick and we’ll surely hurtle off the edge like a special effects car!” And we both know that either fork has its potholes and unsafe stretches and unmarked turns, but we are both so certain that our way will get us there with the least bruises. And the fork is so close, coming closer with every second and still you steer left and I steer right and we still can’t agree on which way the car will eventually turn and instead of driving off the marked road, onto the grass and gravel between the car will rip in half, sending each of us off, alone. And we’ll each reach that city, the one that we made plans to visit together, and we’ll be alone, without maps or reservations or currency, getting funny looks for driving half a car with only two wheels. And we’ll be lost, and maybe we’ll spend weeks looking for eachother in this strange city until finally you catch sight of me buying groceries and run into the store and yell, “where have you been? I’ve been looking all over for you!” or maybe we’ll spend a weekend and realize we have better places to visit, places where there are friends with couches to sleep on, places with familiar restaurants and coffee shops, places with new driving companions. And we’ll leave that city and wonder why we left home in the first place.

Magyar

I’ve been learning this language for a while now, but it’s so unlike the one I’ve been learning since I was two, that I’m not so much learning but treading water in foreign baby-talk. I can say yes and no, say tasty, ask for more, thank. And every other word I don’t need every day gets mimed. “I’m going to take a shower” I think as my fingers pretend they’re little drops of water, falling on my head. I look pointedly at my watch to say “I’m running late”, and to say “I’m taking the train to Prague” I say my destination and make preschool train noises while pumping my hands. I learn simple, useful words like oatmeal, shower, jacket, bed, and forget them as soon as I’ve used them once. The next time I need them I dash to the dictionary to look up the word I already know but can’t remember. Or I just go into the pantry and find the bag of oatmeal and point to it. And she speaks in baby-speak to me, pronouncing things slowly, explaining herself in short words, repeating herself, miming things, using her limited English to help me by saying the English word immediately after the foreign every time she can.

First Kiss

I was thinking, what if we were in a room where the walls were made of highly polished spoons? You and I in the center, our faces reflected back to us thousands of times, warped, stretched, exaggerated, pictures of our held hands when you tilt your head a certain way. My face is an inch away from your face. Being this close to someone is as bad as being hundreds of miles away when you don’t know if that last inch is a distance you can travel. I could make the leap, make you uncomfortable, make you turn your head away. Or I could stay here, gradually fall asleep listening to your breaths, wondering what would happen if our lips touched in our sleep. But I do neither. I ask, “can I kiss you?” and my body freezes for a second in the overheated room while I wait for the spoken response that doesn’t come. You nod instead. I jump a thousand miles in a single step and my lips are on yours for what I can already tell will not be the last time. And as we kiss in the small, enclosed space the bright faces of the spoons dull. First those closest to us, on the floor. Their bowls fog over quickly, muting the colors in the reflections, distorting them like I took off my glasses and nothing has distinct edges any more. And we kiss until even the ceiling isn’t shiny any more and it’s you and me kissing in a white room.

Chocolate

Dip me in chocolate. Cover me in sticky cocoa sweetness that will take an entire bar of soap to wash off. Hold my hand as I step into the murky, opaque pool of brown and say sweet things, coax me until I am entirely submerged, up to the roots of my hair. Make me sweet, make me dirty, ruin the clothes I so carefully picked out this morning. Candy and red wine, prepare me like a decadent dessert. But don’t serve me, don’t eat me, don’t enjoy me, don’t savor me. Just leave me covered in calories, let me harden, oxidized like a Hershey bar in the back of the cupboard you bought for a camping trip and never made into a s’more. Let my shell grow rigid and leave me to be found Easter morning, wrapped in brightly colored tinfoil, ready to be devoured, ears first.

Your Music, Not Mine

Shuffle. Random. I hit next, wait for the song to begin. I don’t recognize the intro, don’t recognize any of the words. It’s music you gave me that I never listened to, playcount zero. The notes don’t harmonize with my mood, the tempo isn’t in sync. The thought of you listening to this, enjoying this, humming along, knowing the words makes me a little uncomfortable. A little too voyeuristic to imagine the music seeping into your body, making your legs twitch and head nod. A little too uncomfortable that the song that grabs you, takes hold of you, doesn’t do the same for me. A little daunting that half of my music collection belonged to you first, that it’s alien territory I haven’t had the time to explore. A little sad you’re not the one controlling the music, keeping me from hitting next, telling me what you love about the notes, the rhythm, the lyrics.

Wrap You Around My Neck

I’m going to wrap you around my neck. Wrap you like a scarf, keep my neck warm when it’s cold and there’s wind and rain and snow, protect the white skin from the elements. I’m going to wrap you around my neck. Like the bow she tied around her cat’s neck on Christmas morning with leftover ribbon, discarded from the wrappings of the book her mother gave her, the cat wriggling in protest, pulling it off five minutes later. I’m going to wrap you around my neck. A little too tightly, not enough to hurt just enough to make me uncomfortable, make me want to pull, loosen, shake my head from side to side. I’m going to wrap you around my neck. A little too warmly, the heat making me nauseous, making me crave cool air. A little too scratchy, the material is 100% wool, practical and uncomfortable. I’m going to wrap you around my neck.