Subway walk

Friday 11/8/19

I'm composing now. Ducking in to put up a few lines here. I walked Emma to the train this morning. It was good to see her. Sounds silly, but it was just good to see her. Your eyes dart about with a person you care about, whom you have not seen, as if you're making sure that, yes, the arms are where they should be, they still have a head. Like I said, silly. She told me she feels insecure, which is why she does not see anyone unless she has to. I didn't know what to make of this. Insecure with me? I said that she had to know that I thought the world of her, that I thought she was a brilliant, kind, beautiful young woman. I put the last bit in because I know she can be a little unsure of her appearance. Acne and what not. (She hardly has any. I had a lot as a kid.) It's not that I'm lying. She is those things. For the past few days I've been making a lunch for her. Or a snack pack, I guess one might call it. Nothing fancy. An apple, granola bars, some candy. I told her not to just wolf it down at once, and then she said that that is what she has been doing, she feels pressure to eat it all for breakfast. I told her to eat it whenever, to share it with her friends, or her teachers, or anything at all that she wants, but probably don't scarf it all down on the train. She was wearing the gloves I had gotten her--they were just cheap $4 gloves from CVS, but you can text with them on. I had not shaved in over a week, and have started to now--it takes a while--and she thinks that is a good look, whereas I remarked that I looked beaten down, broken, which I am, on both accounts, and I look it right now. I haven't really left the desk at all this week. Not many climbs, even. She opined that when my face is shaved, I look like a baby. And then we walked, she got a coffee at Starbucks, she told me about the Mandarin she has learned--on her own--and, should I have need, how to say, "hey, you, idiot over there," and "I just fucked your mother," in Mandarin. There was a dog, so she had to stop to pet it. I am going to get back to work now, and back into the trenches of this hell and this war, and I'll probably vomit and weep as I do most days, pray for death that comes swift and clean while I sleep, with me going to a better world and experiencing so much as a second of peace. But it was good to see Emma.