I hate to think that people can see me. My eyes are set low in hope you don’t notice me. Dressed in black an gray and colorful patterns beneath. I’m surrounded by demons in the form of bus riders in wet coats. If I wanted to smell a dog I would not have come here. If I wanted to struggle in the depths of the poor I would not have come here. But as I hear them saying the middle class is disappearing my stomach turns in knots for the lack of comfort I will never feel again. Forever forced into poverty because there is no hope of the good ol’ days. They weren’t that good anyways. How good can you feel when you secretly know that this isn’t sustainable? It’s the moment where you realize you are only dreaming.
Computers clicking and I know I will work on this better in the late hours of the night. Pressure me into a frenzy- I’m a beast of reaction and fright. It makes me sick, but I’ll work. I’m here with all my negatives. They tell me how terrible it will be if doesn’t work out. The dirty wet coats wrap around my skin. My cheeks poc and begin to sag. A young women walks by and thinks to herself, that someone used to love me, that I used to be a sweat child. What a pity she thinks. I’m yelling something indistinguishable to a bus driver as I fall asleep, head bobbing, covered in random white chunks of days past. Where am I going? 16th street I say through a mumbled drunken slur. My eyes look young but the streets have turned me into an old man. I used to be an idealistic musician, thick hair, with a wicked smirk. I used to love to wander through the deep wilderness. I used to love someone. But things change and I came here with the hope of something better, fell in love with the dark red lights, fell slowly back into the carpet as it caresses me all around. The needles used to be clean and fresh, but now you can smell the rust inside and outside of me. It's consumption and it took all of them.
The young women flinches and her face twists with disgust as I stand up and reactivate the scent of garbage and must. She thinks to herself “where is he going?” She gets off the bus, walks a few blocks, opens her door, crawls up the never-ending staircase, heels clicking, dogs going crazy sniffing and jumping around her, keys dropping in a bowl, doors creaking open. Pants and cardigans falling away, soft skin exposed in dim light, fluffy pillows and silky sheets, and she finds him, wet jackets, asleep in her bed and crawls in.
