RAM: The Open Book

I sit in strangers’ houses
and I watch their tvs
and feed their cats
and walk their dogs
and turn their lights on and off
and use their espresso machines
and eat their food
while they frolick
in some sun drenched locale
resting from the rigors
of their world

I have a week
or two
at the most three
to try and pull my life
together

the strangers’ return
is marked by
packed bags passing
each other
on the way in and out
the door

in the end
we both return
to the normalcy of
our lives.

As he leaned over my left shoulder to type into my keyboard, a wave of electricity passed between us. A small storm of silent thunderclaps and flashes of unseen lightening played between our hearts. So unexpected. My skin tingled. I couldn’t move. I was stunned. He said it was nothing. So it was.

Three and three quarters walls propped up by two desktops, a filing cabinet, and some bookshelves. The cube walls are the warm colors of office burgandy and mars yellow, desert like, cozy like, better than office grey. Pictures of my Sometimes Sweetheart are thumbtacked to the polyester fabric that surrounds me. A postcard photo of Henry Miller watches me, ever reminding me not to lose myself here. Bags of chips left on my desk remind me that I no longer have to worry about food, for now. Colorful cables snake from multiple computers to multiple ports that are hidden in the cube walls. Filtered sunlight fills my space through the skylight above my head. I hear distant laughter on occassion, coming from another cube, an unfamiliar voice that must not be on my team. Tech comes out of the cobwebs in my brain. My creativity is stifled, but my technical career unstagnates. Other things in life remain in limbo while I wait patiently to see how long life will last in this cube.