a sick sad
strong
man.
In the streets
He laid there with a silk blanket beneath him
covered in baby powder
soaking up all his piss and shit.
He ate an apple trying desperately to fit in with the rest of us.
This is how he saw us. This is how he related himself to us.
A week later I saw him again on the corner
of my block
Which was more his then mine because he didn't pay for it
he just laid down and took it
and that takes balls that you ain't got.
He was holding a bible over his head screaming.
No more baby powder, no more blankets.
Just screaming piss and shit at us all.
"You couldn't say words while he was here? You had to talk when he was gone?"
Over and over and over again he screamed at what he was trying to be.
A few weeks later
again on his corner.
I never crossed the street to avoid him. Because I am not that afraid.
He held up the bible
And pointed with his free hand to the barber chair that he had gotten from god knows where.
The sweat and grime and stench were in his fingernails now, and under his belly lining.
He pointed at the chair, soot faced and shoeless.
An invisible man sat there. Jesus, God, any incantation.
His shoes were in front of the chair, the feet of the invisible man.
He didn't say a word. Neither of them did.
And I though to myself, "My my, if that isn't the strongest sentiment of emptiness, of the real dirty under your skin shit and piss I've ever seen. I wonder why he was ever trying to cover it up in the first place."
I saw the incredibly sad loneliness, the longing that this entire world shrinks under.
We don't see but can feel, we ignore we feel until we see it and then it's expected so
We don't even switch to the other side of the street because we're not that afraid.
Everything dying here.
Haven't seen him since.
