She didn’t seem too beautiful to me, but maybe that was because of the distance between our buildings. Regardless, I had seen all I needed to: her straight posture, a thin face where a smile will be imprinted forever in the contours of her mouth, and her frail woman’s hands, moving rapidly in a waterfall of dark hair. Her eyes were always fixed upon her reflection. Dancing across her irises I could see hope, anger, sadness, doubt; emotions that when mixed together created an empty expression that gave nothing away, but not to me. I knew. I could see her suffering plain as day. I could see it mounting for the stray strands of hair standing at attention at the top of her head, down to the last inch of the tip of her toes.
What happened to my darling? Whatever happened in my love’s life that has drained her so? Maybe she wasn’t a beauty, but from the view of my window I wanted to believe that she was a rose with open arms and a mouth of petals that was waiting for me.
From time to time I had tried to take action, to knock on her door and enter her shabby apartment, but fear had always held me back. It is quite one thing to behold her from a distance and learn of her through the safety of a window, but to see her up close? To talk to her? To inhale her scent, to touch her, even simply her arm, or her hand, even with the lightest brush of a feather– too much! My feelings would overwhelm me, I would lose my breath, I wouldn’t be able to utter a single word! No, knocking on her door was not an option. Besides, I wouldn’t know where to knock in the first place. Sometimes I called her Sarah, other times Angela, and others Maria, but her name remained a mystery to me.
Presenting myself at her door had been ruled out as an option right away, but I figured that if I had a chance encounter, rather than presenting myself at her door I would be able to control the beating of my frenzied heart. Therefore I tried to linger by the entrance of her building often, especially on Sundays hoping that she might be coming home from church, but I was not successful. Instead of seeing the face of my beloved I, constantly ran into a certain Mrs. Humphreys, who eyed me like I had a gun in my pocket. One day, behind Mrs. Humphreys the tall, uniformed figure of a police officer emerged. “We have heard of disturbances,” he said, as Mrs. Humphreys shot me a dirty look, and I glanced around myself, nodded, but the officer made a point of standing there, his intent gaze not leaving my face. I was mildly shocked when he told me to stay away from Mrs. Humphreys’s building, but not senseless enough to return there.
This is why I simply sat here and looked upon my lovely Sarah, sometimes Angela, and others Maria from a distance, but would never be able to know the secrets that she held, nor the reason for the melancholy perpetually lingering on her face.
Tell me Honey, what has happened?
I don’t want to do anything but to hold her and tell her that everything is going to be alright. I don’t have bad intentions, I swear, not at all, not me. Simply to hold her. Simply to love her. That is all.