Here's the
situation I find myself in: I want to
talk to her. She's
standing near the door as a
summer breeze sort of wanders in and walks up to my
cheek and sort of stops t
here.
So she's standing by the door. And I'm thinking, Christ, even her fake smile for the entering patrons could resurrect me (a la The Matrix). She's, unfortunately, being paid to be a phony; she grabs the menus and leads the sallow, drawn, sordid, sleep-wrinkled customers back to the smoking section. I'm in Toronto, they still have a smoking section.
I don't even care that she has to spend part of her life being paid to be a wooden dream carved out of this lithe, smooth, summery woman.
My dilemma is not that she's attractive but, by necessity, phony. It's not that she's an epiphany that has to stand by the door to greet the surly and unkempt. My dilemma is that there is absolutely no way for me to ever really meet her. I mean, I could walk up to her but there are some difficulties:
-
Nothing I could say could encapsulate my odd fascination with this woman;
-
Additionally, I'm not really allowed to say how I'm really feeling. Which is sort of lonesome, sad, hyper, and blistery all rolled into one;
-
We live in different cities, and I'll most assuredly never see her again; and,
-
She's working, and another group of well-shod, sombrely-giggling diners with floral print pants have entered.
I can't even really explain how we'll never really meet. Given 10 minutes, I suspect she'd understand how I feel about this futility. I don't have 10 seconds; although potentially, I have a lifetime...
So I wrote this little poemlet for her. It's not even a poem, there's no real imagery so much as a tumble of emotions and confusions and frustrations. The line I remember: "I'm afraid of your first impression./So I don't/let you/have one." It doesn't really sum up how much I wanted to meet her and never could. It's the best I could do.
You know, it's not that she was so beautiful and I wanted to give her a massage, or be there when she got home from a day where someone spilled soup on her and someone else left without paying and she had to mop up some horrific, vile mess and I could listen to her rant and complain and I would smile and hug her and feel her bury her face against my bare neck. Although that would be alright. I just wanted the chance to know more about her. Even if I hated her for being vapid and faceless and a stickler for stupid little details, at least I would know her in some way.
And I guess, what I lament is that that happens to me (and nearly everyone, I'm sure) at least 14 times a day. It happened with her, the greeter/seater at an East Side Mario's, and it happens everytime I see violin girl (who plays the violin at this open mic night that I frequent).