Weary
Somehow, it’s come to this: watching the life gurgle out of me from two feet up.
I didn’t see the other guy, didn’t anticipate the glint of metal, the sudden sharp invasion of the flesh. I didn’t hear, or heard but didn’t listen, when you said to be careful. This neighborhood, you said, this neighborhood is no place for a fuckup like you.
A fuckup like me. An artist like me. A child of privilege like me, living his days in denial like me of his class. A coarse, loud braggart like me, mouth like a missile launcher. A dreamer like me, of wild landscapes and dull people, of twisted pasts and tortured metaphor.
No place.
But I walked out anyways, threw my pride and my cigarettes in my shoulder bag and shouldered the screen door open with studied nonchalance. You could fuck off, I told the street, loud enough for you to hear. But I was the one fucking off.
Cabs are a mathematical abstraction here, odds to short to try for.
I didn’t know which way to walk. Towards the city, I guessed. The buildings leaned in.
Maybe I conjured them, these secret assailants in the dark. Maybe my guilt and my fear got together and manifested themselves a pair of somewhat scruffy human bodies. Maybe I told them what to do, handed them the winking blade, retraced my steps and rounded the corner again.
Fear blocked the way, told me to hand over my wallet. Guilt lurked behind me with the knife and as the steel split my ribs he whispered in my ear. I’ll never forget what he whispered as long as I live.
[image from leena on Flickr]