The city moves her as she moves through it. She peers out of her window and wonders if the symphony below strikes everyone the way it strikes her. On the outside we both know how much is destroyed in the city every night. We both know how many children sleep in between the cracks in the sidewalk and how many stray dogs will never see the sun again. But as morning rears its face, the city sings nothing but life, life, life. The first bus horn is a rooster's crow, hurling the contents of the city into the sunrise. Her living, breathing presence sits comfortably inside the city's own living, breathing presence. The city saves her. It disables the clock-like barrage of poisonous thoughts which are so often wedging themselves into the lobes of her brain. The days can turn on a dime. Her emotional output is a like cat - perfectly content and relaxed right up until the moment it bolts from the room in a panic.
This is a stupid joke at best, a caricature, a satire, a condom unrolling over a banana in sex ed. This is the slow, dawning realization that this is not love, or even a cousin. Not infatuation, or lust, or even extended respect. This was something... else. Something I did not fully understand but would carry me in its arms just the same. What a beautiful loophole I'm living.
