poetry

I Fell in Love with a Stranger. {poetry}

 

The day I fell in love with a stranger
was just like any day.
Maybe.
And she was just like any stranger.
Maybe.
But maybe she wasn’t.
And that
was the beauty of the thing.

She came in
with the stampede on the subway,
with a visible snarl on her lips
and like a cat
that had just experienced
the indecency of being rained on.

Then, unexpectedly,
she folded in on herself
in a corner of the car,
and as the subway started
its skyrocket growl
through the illuminated flashing pitch,
her eyes began to illuminate, too.

But I couldn’t tell
what it was
that she was trying to work out;
every few seconds
her eyebrows would knit together –
these lovely mothy things –
and then like an elastic band
her face would pinch back
to neutral.

No furrowing.
No worrying.
No sorting to do.

Just a calm and open mask of a face.

A serene face, even.

She was dressed in black,
Had her hair pinned back,
sharing a long clean neck,
and I swear,
when I took a peek
when her eyebrows were doing that knitting thing,
I could see her heart.

Pounding.

Rising and falling
the cloth covering her chest.

Did she have a little machine in there?
I wondered.

Some metallic cogwork piece
that could empower
that frail deer-like body so?

Did she know how to turn it off?

It had to require a good amount of energy.
A fair amount of courage.

Then I fell in love with her
because she looked like
she carried electricity in her pocket.
Because she looked like
she was fighting a fight
and I was certain
I wanted her to win.

I knew
beyond a doubt
that in her pounding heart
was blood like my own
but story not my own.

What was her story, then?

something washed in pyrite
something tumbled by agate
something difficult
something brave
something that reverberated
something that she didn’t hide
but had painted on her
like so many invisible tattoos.

The subway tea-kettle whistled to a stop.

She flooded out the door
swallowed by the sea of people,
and I swear once she left
I heard everyone exhale,
and start to breathe again.

***

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Brittany Connors

Brittany Connors

Brittany Connors is an actress, writer, and general life enthusiast based out of NYC. She is a lover of story, text, and all of the various expressions we find to make sense of ourselves and the world around us. She believes all expression is a celebration of this breathtaking existence.
Brittany Connors