Apartments

     On the morning of my first day in Germany I sit in a rented car parked on a cobblestone road beside a small restaurant. To the left is an apartment building. The same as any other. Full of people I'll likely never meet. Some rooms have the blinds drawn. In others I see bookshelves, the edges of sinks, the rings of a shower curtain. Teasing peeks of stranger's lives.
     Apartment buildings make me lonely. I see the light of a lamp -- familiar until a woman's shadow is cast on the wall. I wish I knew what was happening in each room, if the people were happy, if they were in love. I wonder if they see me in the car window and think of who I am.
     The shapes of bodies continue to move in and out of the window like aimless actors, missing their cues and never knowing. Not caring, for they don't know they're being watched and thought of.

     Apartments are reminders that we are petals in a field -- noticed, but never known. Beautiful, but never truly seen.