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Nate Burgos
Spine Tingle
I like reading people, especially their spines, literary that is. There was a woman in front of me reading "An Isolated Event." Sounds like one of those murder mysteries. The woman looked isolated. Her complexion was plain. Straight-lipped. Her pupils were passionate. They moved with intense attention as she delved into each spread of her firmly held book. Was it the only source of intensity in her life? I'm doing it again: Picking on people I do not know. But when you're on the train for an hour, you can't help but critique strangers. We're all strangers on the train. Thus, we're all equal.
There was a woman next to her reading "Small Town Girl." She looked like the title but older. She was wearing a ruffled pink dress. It was the kind you would find in a rustic promenade set to some score by Copland.
Then I saw an eccentric. She had three earrings in her right eyebrow. She wore an elegant black dress that emitted a sheen. Her back was exposed. Her dress was matched by a black furry bag that exposed the spine of "The Lover." She definitely put on the dog. She was weaving jewelry out of thin metal wire. I believe she was wearing a piece of her handiwork: an ornate metal necklace, intricate in its interlace. It looked heavy. It felt heavy. I wished she'd take it off to reveal her neck like her back. She put me in a state of song. I was humming in my head a Cure tune:
"You're such a strange girl
I think you come from another world
I think I'm falling
I think I'm falling in
I think I'm falling in love with you
With you"
There was another girl in front of me with blue eyes. This is a female-facial-fetish of mine. So Shakespearean sexy. She was reading "Twenty Love Poems and A Song of Despair" by Pablo Neruda. I wish I had blue eyes instead of the typical and boring brown. Damn! My stop is here. And I wanted to say something to this captivating stranger. With the English bard as my guide:
"Tell me where is Fancy bred,
Or in the heart, or in the head?
How begot, how nourished?
It is engendered in the eyes..."
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