essays

eaten by flowers

Some days I don’t leave my apartment. And it’s not just cause I’m sad. I’m sure it has something to do with it on some days, but on others, it does not. It’s money and parking and being late, or early in my case. It’s food, and I don’t drink coffee or alcohol, and everyone wants to drink coffee and alcohol, cause it’s easy, and it’s what the streets are filthy with, but I like my alkaline water. I am desperate to be a healthy person, but I’m addicted to TV. I feel like the vegetables that I can afford go bad in two days, and sometimes, movement is impossible to find. I don’t know if it’s physical or emotional. Sometimes it’s both or neither, and sometimes it’s one or the other, but days end, so who needs to know? My apartment knows all of this. I love being in my apartment. It’s too small, but all my things are there, and there are windows in every room, and windows are important to me. I really like being alone in my apartment. I like to be unwitnessed. With people around, there are things to remember and notice, and when I am by myself, there is none of that.

I discover alone and do not invent. I remember the hobbies I was desperate for and get to reclaim. I don’t know if I was ever taught to try, and so now if it’s not easy, I tend to put it down. But when alone, I think I’m brave enough to figure it out. I’ll sing songs to my partner when she gets home that I have written the hour before in my solitude, and then I will forget. I fill pages in otherwise clean notebooks, and I work out problems for no one I know. Sometimes I will surprise myself with what I will do alone. I’ve made a miniature version of my couch, life-size paper pigeons, and read whole books I never intended to read. I will also look out my window. I would never look out the window if someone else were in the room. I think it’s funny when characters in movies look out the window in a room full of people. Do they forget the room is full, or do they want someone to ask what is wrong?

You’ll see a lot from the window of an apartment that is on a main road. There is a man who hangs out in the alley behind my home. Dressed in all black with a button vest and a pork pie hat. He’s always on the phone, and this never happens at night, just during the height of the day. Whenever I see him alone from my window, I think what a curious way to live. When I walk by him on the street, I am not curious about anything. I realize how loud he is on his calls, that he throws cigarettes on the ground, and nasty looks to strangers. He, too, does not want to be witnessed, or maybe he does, and that is what makes me uncomfortable when in the same space. So close, so seen, I forget sometimes people like to make others uncomfortable. On hot days, I worry it’s too hot for the man in all black, but he seems unfazed by anything, having the same conversation in the same outfit no matter the temperature outside.

Men are on the street a lot. This makes sense. I don’t really want to get into why because I believe that it makes sense to you, too. The other day, I saw a different man through a different window. It was my car window. The man was waiting at a bus stop with a loose bird. I feel the same way about my car as I do my apartment. And I saw him and the bird, and neither saw me, and I remember thinking, would I stay anywhere if I knew I could fly? That bird must love that man, and that man must love that bird. There was deep trust on this bus bench, one block away from my house. This, to me, if I were ever to do an open relationship, this would be the kind I would want. In the moment when I was just a witness, it was beautiful, but in the parking of my car, I started to think. Was it a lie, and was something done to the bird that it had forgotten it could ever fly? I also thought I would be terrified if I were sitting on that bench with a loose bird. Going from one space to another can really get me thinking about things differently. The farther I get from something, the more fear becomes part of the conversation.

Depending on where I park, I sometimes pass sidewalk graffiti. For some reason, I thought graffiti needed to be big and horizontal, but it doesn’t. This graffiti by my house is three words in grey, each word could fit in my hand. Noticing these things alone makes me feel like it was meant for me and only me. The message is a call to self. These days, I’m trying to listen to myself more. My partner is better about responding to my needs before I am. She is a godsend and needs to be witnessed to be believed. She is close to the sun and will never get burned. She is the old man to my bird. She will leave the house often when she knows I will be home for a couple of hours to give me alone time. I think I didn’t even know it was a thing until my late twenties. Time alone. It always takes me an hour to feel like the space is just mine, but I love it when she comes home, and I can show her what I have gotten up to.

We go topless a lot at home. Something that neither of us really talked about but fully decided one day, is allowed in the household. I would love to have nothing to show on my chest, and she would love to have more, so in a perfect way, we are on opposite sides of a want. On a recent Wednesday night, I came home and called her from the sidewalk to see if she wanted anything from the convenience store at our corner. She picked up and said no, but she asked, “Can you clearly see me?” and I could. But I could only see her in the light when she stepped into the room with no lights on, only her figure, because of the light from the room she had just left. And we both started laughing, and she asked, “How many people have seen us naked?” I said it was none of our business because I didn’t want us or the home to change. Our home is the wild, and I didn’t want to look at it like a cage.

She didn’t want anything from the convenience store, but I went and got a Vitamin Water, and the street was quiet, and when I got back in front of my apartment, all the lights were out, and I couldn’t see inside, and I wondered if my girlfriend was watching.