used to be so close

I was listening to Juanes on my headphones
and the air was soft and warm on my lips—
it was bliss,
while I sipped on my iced-vanilla-latte with regular milk through my bitten clear straw and rubbed my make-up-free wooden-brown eyes—
I had to squint,
because the sun was intense even in January,
while crossing Highland Avenue,
and there he was sitting in a little grassy patch, next to the parking lot,
with his clumsy feet resting in the lawn and the rest of his body was dead weight in his wheel chair;
he struggled slightly to hold his cell phone up to his right ear
while I was reminded of his scraggly gray-sandy-blond hair and bony forearms…
so I turned down the volume of my music
and he glanced up in my direction and I knew that he saw me
so I passed a smile at him that was brighter than the sun
in acknowledgement of each other’s mere existence on this tremulous planet,
but he quickly looked away before this effort could be effective—
I laughed to myself,
of course he would pretend that I was invisible,
even though I just wanted him to reciprocate my smile,
perhaps a slight grin,
a nod of the head,
or a casual wave of the hand,
because I didn’t even care to hear his voice,
I wasn’t asking for a hello, a how are you, or even a haven’t seen ya in awhile—
I wasn’t requesting any physical contact, not a sympathetic embrace;
because all of that would’ve just been too much to ask for…
… too much,
and I wanted to shout to him “I am alive!” I almost did I could feel my lungs expanding and my mouth opening and my tongue flexing and my voice box vibrating—
but nothing came out,
except silence, yet my mouth still gaping
“Hello! Brooke Fucking Willock, right here!”
more wanting, more silence and I was only on my way to class, goddamit,
it was pure coincidence that we were only five feet in geographical distance from each other,
but emotional distance, or any other form of connection or communication or contact—
was light-years and galaxies away,
I was not even human to him…
perhaps I was an alien
so surreal and
incomprehensive
to his diamond-cut blue eyes, that I was absolutely non-existent to his mental capacity and self-produced reality… because I was
invisible
I might as well have been on Mars
or maybe missing or meandering in this mess of my life
and I caught him glancing up again as I passed him
because he must’ve smelled my perfume or felt the refracted disappointment beaming from my eyes,
and he acted like he was too busy on his cell phone,
not to be bothered or interrupted,
as if he ignoring me wasn’t his fault—
of course, too busy and distracted to
be human.