Ruby

     I feel like the longing cannot be effectively captured in a single sentence; but if something was to come close, it would be a single question: why do I miss so strongly things that I've never had? Or, in another; how can I miss a world I was never a part of? I feel like a ghost of someone else's passion.

There was this girl. In my head, I say, because at least I could know for sure that she was there: in that I felt, so vividly and strongly, as if it wasn't only in my mind that I could hear her heels clicking off of the pavement, in an alley in Ladd's Addition. Her name might have been Ruby -- and as I write, oh the nagging and remorse that I felt so deep down as I forgot to capitalize that name the first time I wrote it, as if I was commanded to put some respect behind such a lovely name -- but I never met her, at least it is to say, my body never met her. Never met her in this allotted time that I have, living this life.

    I remember the first time I saw her -- I was in high school. I was just sitting there, in my high school English class, and it hit me like a truck. A good ten, twenty, a thousand years of longing and emotion. I almost cried, getting to know her in just a fraction of a second; my mind felt cleaved although an axe had been driven through the most tender of fissures. I know she had this red-ish hair, red like faded box dye put in under an unpredictably-pressured faucet, in a yellow worn-stained bathtub. I know she had it cut like a bob, and she had these bouncy bangs that really drew out her eyes. Whatever color they were, they deserved to be honored and that color painted all over a home. She was cold like the stinging dry of winter, but beautiful and radiant like the clearest sunrises of the very same season; in the very same vein. She had a tongue as sharp as a tack, and her words could bite and weigh on you with all the crushing pressure of the oldest, most storied buildings. I know she was shorter than me, shorter than whoever I was then, and I know she wore denim. PLENTY of denim. Nobody needs that much denim. I mean like, denim in every outfit, be it jacket, short shorts, or jeans. I smile and chuckle when I tell you this, she was a real catch. Damn straight. 

    She was funny, and she had this smile that creeped up the sides of her cheeks like a light of lone streetlamp on the curb of your childhood home. She was smart, and coy, and she knew it. Confidence looked good on her. I know she had daddy issues, and I knew he was a real bitch. I feel like he maybe had heart issues. Real nasty cough either way. I remember walking her home, and making some mistake: one way or another, I ended up in an alley, staring at the power lines and missing something. Something about us.

I don't know if I was me when I knew Ruby. I lean towards past life when I try to explain her, mostly because I really don't want to sound delusional. I promise you, be there no other way for me to reassure her existence, at least in my eyes, heart, and mind: there could be no such longing for a woman who couldn't be real.