I've become captured and intertwined with the city, with its breath and its death and all that there is between the two... but its truly the insanity. I feel strangely comforted and even at peace surrounded by the madness of the city. The madness of feeling like an outsider, the madness of feeling like an insider, the madness of making eye contact - playing that ancient game - the madness of persistently being compelled toward the tweaked-out dope fiends, the mumbling black men, the white Mannerist painting women who only speak between contemplative cigarettes. And those poisonous rose bushes. The madness of homelessness and addiction. The madness of corporate propaganda and production; the never-ending machine that we "inhabit" when really it's the other way around; the concrete and structure and money madness: the city's blood transfusion. Money is the only thing that should be wasted. Ironically. Times and divided and squared by two. Because to waste money is either to wage war on Earth or to wage war on Capitalism.
And I want to tell you about one dreary night in November...
We began, holding hands with destiny and her ease, her grace - letting her in to mingle with our eyes and misguide our minds. We were three young kids, elongated at the elbows and swollen with the magical misery of the city. We stopped to let the stillborn in. And in he came.
The bus slowed, groaned and sighed to a stop where the lights were dim and the night was grim and all the fairy tales came out to play. Crystals in the air and lonesome footsteps like hidden stars echoed with train whistles as we departed the panting bus with our lowered eyes and suspended breaths.
"It's frightening!" she pointed to us, "how enlightening... the lightning can be." Crouched on the curbside, hands dancing like in some crazed alien sign language, an old street woman spoke in poetic fragments. She had hair like milk and poison for bones.
Destiny teased us; direction didn't land in our laps or on our shoulders but we knew the dwelling of the city like the swelling of sobbing throats and eyes, like sex and morphine. So we laughed at the rain instead and headed back from where we once were, back towards the bus, back towards the cages.
The bus slowed, groaned and sighed to a stop where the lights were dim and the night was grim and all the fairy tales came out to play. Crystals in the air and lonesome footsteps like hidden stars echoed with train whistles as we departed the panting bus with our lowered eyes and suspended breaths.
"It's frightening!" she pointed to us, "how enlightening... the lightning can be." Crouched on the curbside, hands dancing like in some crazed alien sign language, an old street woman spoke in poetic fragments. She had hair like milk and poison for bones.
Destiny teased us; direction didn't land in our laps or on our shoulders but we knew the dwelling of the city like the swelling of sobbing throats and eyes, like sex and morphine. So we laughed at the rain instead and headed back from where we once were, back towards the bus, back towards the cages.
The floor inside was stale and the hands that waited it steamed like violence though their callous was pure. His smile was gradual and subtle but true. The warmth from the open doorway was undisturbed; daisies fell at his feet when he kicked the shopping cart down the sidewalk to let us into his tiny hole in the wall, three blocks from the bus stop. The woman with the hands and poetry followed us inside on her feather feet.
Our shoes echoed off the cement floor and walls; the frequency of a dungeon but the warmth of a clammy hand. The man and the woman walked before us in whispers and superstition, throwing rocks to spark the way. When they ran out of rocks we were left in the purest of solitude, engulfed by still anticipation. Sounds began to resonate all around us, like static, then like singing glass bowls, like cries and whimpers and crashing waves. We called ourselves gods and left the ceiling on our eyelids and the building in our past, heading towards something like twilight, blinded by our own torch.
The journey was deep into something like the complexity of sewage pipes and we escaped the space time continuum, discovering its curvature and snipping it with glowing scissors. The man asked if we had any cash. We emptied our pockets, revealing three crumpled bills, two river stones, a broken earring and a tiny light bulb.
He nudged Feather Feet and she nodded, crossing her arms and releasing a snort from her nose. Transaction approved.
And finally direction was found in the form of the old man's frown and we were a bit disenchanted that we had found it at all. Our backs caked with the grime of cold nights, we were like submarines sinking into the graves of waves washing away a thousand lonely footprints. And drain away we did. It was honest and intimate. He pointed us away from the twilight and into a cell. His manner took on a professional essence and he said:
"Vaginal toys on the wall to the left; butt plugs, anal beads in back; clearance items up front on this rack here; bondage to the right, just behind the soft core and gay porn. We've got blow up dolls in back and every color and taste of lube you can imagine. You look like the kinda kids that would be interested in our hemp flavored lubricant, no?"
Alas, we have returned to the city.
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