People Murals

Stream-writing while in an outdoor cafe.

Faces. There are dozens of them, and they drift by like longing.
Some of them sizzle and blur under the contrived lighting,
the restaurant’s fake azaleas and banyan trees. To my right,
two lovers argue in hushed tones, struggling
against their argument in their gazebo seat.
Their whispers are telltale indications of what’s going to happen next;
this is a quarrel that is going to end in kisses. To my left,
a family of four are discussing the menu,
and they are the image of the family I longed to have
but somehow didn’t. Or wouldn’t. I had long accepted that.
Being an adult is to learn how to bend with whatever’s there, spine be damned.
The rest of my surroundings comprises people I wanted to become
and people I wanted to have. Become: a young woman in a grey dress
inspired by the garments of Appolonian priestesses, confidence sparkling
from each of the black stones strung in her enormous necklace;
or a woman in her thirties, laughing with a teenager (perhaps a niece, or a daughter she had
at an early age), both dressed in nightlife elegance;
or that young lady from a group of three,
friends regaling each other with life stories in their afterwork dishevelment.
Have: a man with a guitar; a man; a guitar. He sits alone drumming restless
fingers on the instrument’s wooden case. I wonder who he could be
waiting for. When our eyes meet he takes my breath away, but he looks away that quickly.
I am in the midst of all these, and there is nothing left but myself
to nurse my lonely thoughts. I drink the rest of my wine and it tastes like cold skeletons,
the frayed dead that are cramped in my head, shoulder bone to shoulder bone.
Then I stare at the distance and notice the restaurant’s garden mirror,
hung above one of their fake trees. The gilded frame perfectly borders
the upper half of my body. I stare at myself, at the lines on my face,
at the dots in my eyes. I stare at myself and I see… you.
I smile sadly wondering, “Do you see me too?”