Sitting at a coffee shop, I find myself recovering from the clandestine Christmas celebration, thinking of the woman in the window of Kurtz’s Tower; how she spoke to me in that alto voice as if singing. Singing to me alone; not scared to express her feelings. A true artist.

Yet all this is not true. She is in my head, dancing and spinning to classical pieces, then turning and twisting like a contortionist at ease with herself. All with Goethe looking down on us.

Did this happen to me? It is too great for me to differentiate what is truth and what fiction is anymore. What has actually happened versus what I wish to be.

These words on paper. I search for truth every day and come up short of the mark. Is Cleo real? I no longer could tell you. She baffles me yet at the same time, is so easy to figure out. She is a lover and caretaker all in one. She is a liar and a thief of souls. But, she has not stolen mine. Cleo feeds me wonderful pates and fruits in bed with jugs of wine. She tempts me every morning with that beautiful cello she plays naked between her legs. But could it be that I am the instrument she plays upon? My soul is the strings she plucks.

Once again. What is real, and what is fiction? I have a feeling I will find out soon enough. God forbid if this ever gets published. For murder will surely happen. Cleo will strum so hard with her bow that it will cast out the devils and angels within me.

What am I doing? I am going mad. Madder than a hatter. Do I belong back to sleeping on the L? Back to scrounging for food and dollars? Or was that fiction as well? I ask myself these questions as I sit in luxury on Dearborn where it is easy to reflect. Yet hard to remember.

Tonight, I will go to Diversey and look up at the ballerina’s window. Maybe she will dance for me. Perhaps there is nothing behind the blinds. Just darkness.

How I wish she appears tonight. I hope. I pray. Prove to me that I’m not crazy, but merely in love.