-
and i wouldn't raise my child inside the city anyway
they grow up too savvy and they grow up too fast
and they know about buying things and they know about sex
and they know about investment banking
and also about bad brokerage burns
and they know about the numbers
and they know about the words
and they know about the bottom lines
and also about stones
and they know about careers and about the real deals
and they all grow up and become people's people with people skills
-
-
I couldn't turn around, but I could feel her watching me, right between my shoulder blades.
I couldn't turn around, but I could feel her watching me, right between my shoulder blades.
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The metro car emptied out at the next stop, and I glanced nonchalantly, or not, over my shoulder. She looked up at me from her carriage, her eyes boring into mine until I had to blink and glance away. They were large in her unfinished baby head, but not vague and unfocused like the baby eyes I was used to. Her gaze was steady, moving over my face, my hair, my shirt, my hands. I actually began to fidget, tucking a rogue strand behind my ear, drumming my fingers on the wall. I turned to watch the tunnel wall shrieking by, but her eyes were on me still. I could feel them.
-
She seems so intelligent. She seems curious, but also judgmental. She's not just absorbing information. What is she thinking? Can she think? I look back at her and feel kind of sad for her. There are going to be so many years before she can remember the things she sees or tell people the things that she wants. But what does she see here, in me? Does she pity me, an ocean away from my mother? Forced to remember the things that happen to me, to alternately mourn and celebrate my hours and days?
-
I can't tell people most of the things that I want to either, I tell her silently, hoping to establish some common ground. She only closes her eyes, as though she's seen enough. I watch her a while longer, but I cannot imagine her any other way than she is now. She will be dark-haired and speak impeccable French and stare down hopeful boys in clubs. Maybe she will one day leave this place for somewhere that she can't make herself understood, somewhere she can only communicate with her eyes, like she is now, like I am once again.
-
We are sisters, I tell her, and wish her luck as I get off. She is swallowed by the black tunnel and I am swept out into the black night.
-
She seems so intelligent. She seems curious, but also judgmental. She's not just absorbing information. What is she thinking? Can she think? I look back at her and feel kind of sad for her. There are going to be so many years before she can remember the things she sees or tell people the things that she wants. But what does she see here, in me? Does she pity me, an ocean away from my mother? Forced to remember the things that happen to me, to alternately mourn and celebrate my hours and days?
-
I can't tell people most of the things that I want to either, I tell her silently, hoping to establish some common ground. She only closes her eyes, as though she's seen enough. I watch her a while longer, but I cannot imagine her any other way than she is now. She will be dark-haired and speak impeccable French and stare down hopeful boys in clubs. Maybe she will one day leave this place for somewhere that she can't make herself understood, somewhere she can only communicate with her eyes, like she is now, like I am once again.
-
We are sisters, I tell her, and wish her luck as I get off. She is swallowed by the black tunnel and I am swept out into the black night.
