Not for our eyes. (Based on words from a friend)

There are things that are not for our eyes.
If my mother could have googled my father she would have run, or maybe he would have, regardless I wouldn't exist.
There are things we shouldn't know, of others others, unless we are told that there are others. There should not be photographic 'proof' to mill on.  There should not be images or videos of who people are perceived to be, or want to be perceived to be, not who they are when they pause on the phone line, not the sentences they form that are intended for us, looks intended for us, words intended for us. It just gives our narrative pictures, springboards for the mind, and instead of creating things we create stories. There are things that are not for our eyes.  Things that came before and things that came after. Things that never come so we build them.

For a while, I looked for signs of who she was. Of photos or posts, or words or clues, or something that could indicate that she existed. That she tried to piss on your wall. Essentially that's what we do right, we piss on people's walls. Boys walls, girls walls, like dogs. Mark our territory through likes and comments and  here here here here I am. And I haven't marked you in a while, I haven't read you in a while I haven't spoken to you in a while. I haven't seen your face, or heard your voice, I don't know if I want to, if there would be a point, but yet it's okay that we're intertwined. It's an agreement we made before all of this, that, and the offense of pulling out at this moment would make something out of nothing, or maybe it wouldn't. And I hid you on some-things, others I can't.  So I'm thrown some of you, and you me, and our feeds cross and our friends cross. It seems quite stupid feeds crossing, when two actual voices can't even speak.


You built me, and I built you. You'll build someone else, and I will too. It's what you do with the person who is there in the morning that matters, and maybe our stories didn't hold up, maybe hers will, maybe his will.

And the thing is we all build people. Create a narrative to suit ours, regardless of word bites, and photofeeds, tweets, and updates, and likes and dislikes. Since humans met they've been building narratives. 'I like the line of his cave drawing of an antelope he must be sensitive. " " His shoulders are broad he'll be a good provider and husband". "Her hip to waist ratio means she must be fertile" is replaced by a million meanings for an arm touch.  "He listens to NPR, so someday we'll listen to Ira Glass on Sunday mornings while making pancakes with our two point five children". We fill in blanks after a beer, a glass of wine, some coffee, a night. Eventually though those memories fade until the next contact or were eventually replaced by actual reality.  We built a frame and replaced it with solids when we knew the foundation was there, in relationships, in friendships in everything. We earned actual facts and in the meantime our imagination held places for some, not all but some.

There are things that are not for our eyes. Before this there were people we never knew existed that we never knew to build. People I will never meet, that might live miles away. People with bright eyes, or too much eyeliner, who like the same music, or have bad taste in music. There are people who travel,  and seem sweet, or sexy, or trashy, or simple or  just different, or some other adjective I choose to put on them based on mere pages. People whose very existence make me seem like a stalker. People who probably don't know I EXIST.  People who I wouldn't recognize in the grocery store.  I'm sure some have built the narrative around mine, around digital me, one that is far more exciting than the reality. And I'm sure there's a girl somewhere thinking I'm another's other, pissing on someones wall. And the truth is if she or I just built stories around ourselves, and lived those stories, we'd both have more to show for it.