Acrophobia

She wore her sports bra around the apartment –

left the door wide open.

He couldn’t tell if she was daring the world to look

or assuming the world would not.

 

Her confidence gave him vertigo –

He felt green with envy and diziness for the way life picked

her first, gave her aura an extra sheen.

Not that he wanted it, but that he had to witness it

Be near, but not close enough

to live inside it too.

 

Some weeks, he hid from her. Buried himself

in work, in other friends. He could not bear the sight

of her smiling, laughing, but not with him.

 

Other weeks, he walked through that open door

hoping to himself she was brazen

enough to cook ramen with her torso bare.

 

Green though he was, he could not stay away from the edge

of where their friendship would explode into… what?

It felt large – larger than the universe he studied, larger than space-time.

He needed time to figure it out, first. What equation

can calculate how love will change the experience

of waking up every morning?

 

Numbers and symbols and late night tapping at key boards, eyes

drowning in computer screens – all faded the second

she sauntered past his window, dreaming

probably

of flight.