05.17.03 - 10:55

it starts in front of a house on waller, between steiner and pierce, chalked crudely on the sidewalk. it says, i'm sorry, i know a thousand apologies may not be enough but please forgive me, i'm so sorry. and then it's every two or three feet from there until the n-judah stop on duboce and church. i'm sorry. no, actually it says, I'M SORRY. there are a lot of different colors. i didn't find the beginning first. i got off the train and i saw the end and it said, PLEASE FORGIVE ME, I'M SORRY. i walked up steiner with the i'm sorry's underneath my feet. i could see him (it had to be a him, right? i can't imagine it not being a him) on his knees, scrawling the phrase, stumbling forward a few feet, reaching for a different color. penance, on his knees, and i saw it happen in my mind, in the dark, on a windy night. everyone has gone to bed. everyone but him, and halfway through he tires of walking on his knees and so he stands up, kneels, writes, stands up, kneels. he tires of this near the end too and then he's crawling, weak tears trickling down his cheeks, the wind stinging his wet cheeks. and then he's there, in front of her house and he knows she'll wake up in the morning and walk to the n-judah stop and be confronted every step of the way with his apologies, furtively delivered in the night.

underneath one of the last i'm sorry's someone else has chalked in, NO YOU'RE NOT.

walking up steiner, the first time i saw them, i was overwhelmed and finally turned at waller because i couldn't handle imagining him on his knees, whimpering in the dark, the chalk trembling in his stiff fingers. but the i'm sorry's turned with me and then i saw the end (the beginning) and when i read that, i'm sorry, i know a thousand apologies may not be enough but please forgive me, i'm so sorry, i saw her for the first time, her eyes, huge, empty. what did he do? how does she feel, stepping over the apologies on her way to work, while other people walk by, pausing to read the sidewalk, exchanging quizzical looks? does it even matter? or is it something that starts before this, the empty space inside where her heart should be? was it over before it began? a thousand apologies can't ever be enough when your heart never knew how to feel in the first place. i want to find her, i want to ask her the important questions. i want to know if they fixed it, if it's whole again. it is difficult when love isn't enough, when devotion doesn't matter, when a sacrifice is meaningless. but it is harder to live in a world where nothing means anything, where people disappear when they're not in front of you. it is harder to live in a world where you don't feel the things that everyone else feels, where no one understands. nothing can ever be enough in this lifetime, nothing can make up for the pain you were born with, nothing can fix your broken parts when you don't even know where they are. nothing, and i suppose there may be a zen-like peace in this sort of realization but when you are born unappreciative, when you are born expecting happiness, feeling entitled to it, it's a terrible disappointment to know that it isn't meant for you, it never was.

we see too clearly. we know too much and feel nothing at all but the empty hurt.

we are all so very small.

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