Maya Detwiller is a recent graduate of Lafayette College with Mechanical Engineering degree and an English minor.
My Favorite Things
My favorite thing that happens on the street is when a woman walks by and I smell the perfume she leaves behind. I am with her in the morning when her hair was still warm from her blow dryer and her cheek was still crossed by pillowcase folds. She pulls on fabulous clothes in the perfect order, cuffs, tucks, then untucks, and adds vanilla to the insides of her wrists. I want to run after her. I want to ask her for coffee so I can sit in her scent a little longer and ask her who was the first person she knew by their smell. It was her grandmother, who always smelled like the champagne colored bottle from her dresser. The glass had yellow, pink, and green flowers.
My favorite thing that happens in the subway is when the lights on the train flicker. I picture the car grinding to a stop and the lights going out. I would scream and grab the arm of the man who sat next to me. We would make breathy, nervous jokes to one another until the firemen let us out and we would walk through the long, dirty tunnel to the light of the last platform we passed. People would pull us up and over the ledge and we would go in different directions smile and we’d never see each other again.
My favorite thing that happens in my hometown is when I get to drive again. It is usually night and I can make the radio loud and feel the cold leather seats sap my body heat while I shoot through the hills. The people turn into lights and I don’t have to tell anyone a thing about me.