just a thin pane of glass

This morning, after going to bed stressed out about my window and how quite literally unhinged from its track the window is, I noticed a man sleeping in his car.

I am ashamed to admit it, but I was distressed. A slender—and not altogether sturdy—pane of glass was the only barrier separating me from this man in his car. I felt guilty for being safe in my apartment, guilty for the radical difference in our sleeping arrangements, and guilty for being worried about being so unprotected from the street. For being made vulnerable by a pane of glass.

In the park, trying to read, the words on the page and the steam from my coffee swarmed in a maelstrom of guilt.

The patterns on your eyelids when you squeeze your eyelids close turned into the checkered patterns on the blanket of the man who had slept under a checkered blanket in his car last night. I was thrilled by how close I was to the street and haunted by how I had slept not knowing someone was sleeping outside of my window. It was the proximity of our sleeping arrangements that seemed vastly unfair.

Just a thin pane of glass separated us from a decent and fair's night sleep to homelessness. Just a thin pane of glass.