I watched her grow closer as we ran down the street. The elderly African American woman and had already turned her head back to its original position of staring directly in front of her. The house behind her is in shambles, the yard littered with trash. I could see the exhaustion that even the deep folds of her face couldn’t mask. A cigarette was held between two fingers and she let out the smoke in a single small stream. She usually nods at us- he chin sharpened by the tight silver bun pulled to the crown of her head. I wished I could meet her and know her but never will.

I have never been able to meet another human being. I’ve seen millions, spoken to thousands, become friends with dozens, and felt that I understood a select few but I never got to envelope the way I’d looked to see into every crevice of their being. I saw their idiosyncrasies and head their secrets. We shared memories and tears but there is a side buried so deep in their subconscious that nobody can dig it out.  When I peel an orange I always try my best to not puncture the fragile flesh with my finger nail allowing a dribble of juice to rain down from my wrist and be lost. I always wonder what that drop would’ve tasted like- everyone tells me it wouldn’t make a difference but I still want to know. Was it the hint of sweetness that seemed missing or the bitterness that would’ve the contorted the taste.

I want to be able to swallow somebody whole and digest the most inner workings of their brain. I want to grasp their ideas in my palms and walk on their adversity with the soles of my feet.  I want the gray matter of their brain to light up for me into every color of the rainbow. I want a dictionary of every tear and a thesaurus of the ways they show affection I want to know. I detest inferring- it has always felt too much like coloring inside the lines something my shaky hands never seemed to be able to do accurately.

So I create it. I make it up. When I write the characters have already been digested because I wrote their biographies. I get to prove Antoine Lavoisier wrong because I am making something. I am not moving matter from what state to the next I have the Godly power of crating people. Suddenly,  I am not the only perspective but a smattering of an infinite number. I can never walk in somebody else’s shoes but I can build a pair for myself that don’t feet my feet. I make the lines. The minute ones that everyone says don’t matter but with a little luck change the picture all together.

I know that eventually she will be right beside me and he only thing between us will be a small, metal gate and all I will want to do is push it open and sit beside her for hours asking her enough questions so I can see her life in the air in front of me but I won’t.  I can’t. I am forced to do it myself.