It’s the hallway glances that will always mean the most to me. The half or quarter second where she and I or he and I share our lives. It’s non-verbal, but pungent and tangible. His grimace, her faked smile, his busy schedule and over checking his watch to make sure that he’s still on time from when he checked it two seconds ago, her cell phone conversation that isn’t going as planned. For milliseconds, I get to step out of my life; out of my broken relationship (that she’s trying to wrench back together), my fear of what’s to come (the future always looks good from far away, like fat chicks look skinny about a mile out), my piss-poor GPA, and just bleed through them. For as long as I can stare into passing eyes, I get to feel. God, it’s amazing. Feeling. Something I haven’t done for myself in twenty-one years. I remember being five and standing at my best friend’s casket, thinking about the flashcards at school that day and telling myself that Danny was bound to die eventually at least he did it fast enough that I wouldn’t have to beat him in flashcard races tomorrow. No tears. No emotion. Oh, here comes one. Fishnets, black hoodie, short black skirt, black hair... brown eyes. She’s a whore. I can tell it, and she knows it. Her glance is still singing the praises of last nights random encounter. She liked that one, it made this morning good. He was handsome in a scary sort of way, and the way he pulled her close right before she came; oh the exhilaration. God, she lived for that. If she could feel like that… The moment passes. She’s on to her next meeting and I’m still standing at the corner of the hallway, just looking. Pretending like I didn’t just get high off of her emotions. Trying to hide the fact that I just took a hit in public, and my mind is racing with all sorts of ideas that could have never been there without my drug, without being a wallflower with pacing eyes. Another specimen. He’s a professor; my physics professor actually. Typically a jolly fellow, but today his face is dark. Brows are furled, lips taught and poised to jump out and bite anyone who dares wander too close. He thinks his wife is having an affair. I know, because I’ve been there. I’ve tightened my lips and taken it out on friends but for different reasons than him. He’s hurt… bloodshot eyes tell me he was up all night thinking about it; he’s betrayed. I was never that, I was perplexed; but that’s a different story. He pauses, bald head gleams in fluorescent lights, and he turns into a classroom; eyes never lifting from the floor below him; but I know. I know he wants to burn a hole through the door and punch through the cinder blocks beside it, but he never will; he doesn’t have the balls. I know how that feels too. Cheerleader. You can always spot them. Their eyes have a fake gleam about them. Like they painted a reflective film on their eyes… to make sure it’s always sparkling, just like she painted her teeth white. It’s the cheeks that give her away, a missed make-up spot that shows tired lines and dying skin. It’s red and chapped and tired of being hidden underneath a fake beauty. Her cheek is singing BB King and she’s chanting the latest pop song. Her cheek sings prettier; I can feel it; it touches my soul, reminds me that I should give up living vicariously through strangers… that I’m hiding behind the emotional foliage of teenagers and old men that have seen too little or too much to be of any logical value. “Ummmm, why do you always stand here and look at me as I walk to class?” Dear, if you could see what I just saw in your face, you’d kill to just stand here and gaze.
