University Braille

here I am, sitting in the heat of the subway train, watching this blind girl across the aisle, her fingers crawling over some textbook like it’s a lover’s back.

those pages are slick, white, gleaming under the dizzy fluorescent lights, little bumps raised up just enough for her to feel the secrets — technical diagrams, chemistry, hydrocarbons, whatever the hell.

her eyes are open but unseeing,
red-rimmed,
twitching like they’re trying to cry.

soft hands, pale, sliding slow,
butane, methane, propane,
ethanol and methanol.

me, I’m just sucking on a warm beer in a paper bag, thinking how the world keeps inventing new ways to be cruel. she’s in love with molecules I’d rather piss on, and I’m in love with nothing but the next stop, where I can get off and forget I ever saw her.

the train rattles on,
and her fingers keep moving,
gently across the page.

those tiny black bumps,
the names of things that burn—
and me, long burnt out.