on the practice of human consumption

she caught my eye from across the room.
in that oxy-moronic kind of loud whisper she said,
"you are totally analyzing EVERYONE, aren't you?"

from the other side of the apartment, filled with people i didn't know,
she nailed me.
she was a newer friend -
we had only met a year or two previously when i moved to denver -
but she sure did seem to understood how i operate in the world.

it wasn't just because i was a counseling student,
though that was part of it, i'm sure.
it was the way that i am in a group.
the way that i take in people
chew them up
digest them.
the way i taste them
but i don't always serve up heaping spoonfuls
of
myself.

with the advent of blogs and online communities
it is becoming more and more clear
that i have an appetite for those i don't know.
i like to figure them out
and glamorize them.
i like to imagine their world.
if i am honest,
perhaps it is not so much their world i am imagining,
but rather the world i might like to have as my own.

people talk about stalking blogs.
this is, i believe, the act of reading a person's blog
but never commenting
never interacting
responding
engaging.
never
revealing
your
self.

i don't stalk for long.
for that would imply watching
without taking any action.

i either move along,
bored with what i have found,
not seeing the value,
not seeing the person.
but seeing that it cannot fill me.

or i indulge.
i gorge.
i eat it all up,
longing for it to fill the deepest of hunger pangs.

as a turkey sandwhich tastes so different
so much more gratifying
so much more full of flavor
when eaten on the way up a long, steep mountain path,
so does the information of a person's life taste
when i know
that i don't ever have to been known by them.
not just that,
but i do not have to give anything.
all i have to do is take
freely
and
often.

and i do not give myself to them.
and really, i do not give myself to myself.
it is hard to live your own life
when you are so very busy
digesting the life
of someone else.