Brash Blackberry #11

I watch her almost every opportunity I get. She doesn’t see me, but I’m right behind her, observing the grace she exudes on the streets of Manhattan. People crowd around her as if she’s an angel who lifts weary spirits. She fills me with hope.

I watch her eat with a friend at Balthazar in Soho. She’s having a salad and bouillabaisse. He’s having goat cheese and onion. I’m eating Frosted Flakes.

Is it wrong for me to watch her as I do?

I watch her as she walks around her apartment nude, blissfully unaware that I can see every part of her. She’s talking on the phone and listening to Wilco as she cleans. I think I’m going to record it this time.

I watch her read the newspaper during church. She hides clippings from the entertainment section inside the songbook, casually singing a few words just to make it look like she’s paying attention. Sometimes she mouths the words “watermelon” and “Hollywood” when someone looks at her. I’m the only one who knows.

Is it wrong to know what happens to her before she does?

I watch her sleep in her Queen-sized bed, silently dreaming of a better life. I interpret her tossing and turning as a nightmare, one where she will never meet me – her soul mate.

I watch her translate at the U.N. where she speaks French as if it was her first language. I see the loneliness on her face when she leaves the building, knowing that not even communicating across other languages will fulfill her. She knows someone is out there, waiting silently.

Is it wrong for me to love a woman who can never love me?

I watch her as she dies instantly in a car accident on I-95 in the early morning. A twin brother and sister drove the car that hit her. A Crown Victoria crushed her ribcage to the point where she couldn’t breathe. They were drug traffickers, unworthy to take her life. I would kill them if I could.

I always cry when I watch this part. Sometimes I have to pause it and go to the bathroom to fix my make-up. Every time I watch her die, a part of me dies too. But her death also reminds me that my own will come shortly.

Is it wrong to wish for death?

I watch her like she watches her TV, except what I watch is real and what she views is fictitious. Her favorite shows, “Friends” and “House, M.D.” pass the time away. She finds it suitable to spend her time gazing at a 2-D image without care. I refuse to judge her because I know what I do is similar, but not quite.

We are separated by 600 years, but that doesn’t make me lose hope. Maybe some day my people will be able to actually return to the past instead of watch it at on the teleglobe. Then I could travel back and meet her in person. I would whisk her away to my time and we would live together in harmony, woman and woman.

Is it wrong to imagine my life with her in it?

A feeling in my gut tells me I will never hold her hand, never kiss her rosy cheeks, never let her cry on my shoulder. And she will never do the same for me. But alas, I can hope that one day we will see each other. Somehow, someway, I will find her.

But for now all I can do is watch and pray that she senses my presence, always beside her, with her every step of the way until her lungs collapse.