A Nice Walk

I stood outside that store until your face appeared. It wasn't that long of a wait, really; I imagine you take a photo every time you go in there. I imagine you think of it as some sort of gift to the world, your visage on those screens. You are interesting looking, at the very least, I'll grant you that. Your emo sweep of fringe and crooked mocking smirk look just perfect poised above that dummy and its shirt. Beautiful brown eyes.

I walked up Broadway in the cool evening breeze. I passed next week's boyfriend holding hands with this week's boyfriend, and I though, "Used goods. Pass."

I walked past the restaurant where I will celebrate my 29th birthday next month. I walked past a tanning bed window display. How much is that melanoma in the window? I walked past the gays that I despise and their beautiful women. I walked, with some effort, around a couple who was taking up entirely too much sidewalk for only two people.

At the corner of Belmont I saw that guy that I keep seeing everywhere I go. Train from O'Hare, movie in the park downtown, now here on the street. Eyes like slate grey river rocks, or the pools that hold them. Regrettable sideburns, though.

I walked past the bank that isn't mine but could some day be mine, and I saw the cleaning lady casually wiping a counter and talking furiously into her phone.

I walked past an Indian princess at whose feet I would surely worship and learn Punjabi. I would take the three day train from Mumbai and greet her family in whatever traditional way I must in order to make her mine.

I walked past mannequins with nipples much too prominent to properly display men's clothing, and breasts much too small to display women's.

I was cut off at the next crossing by a couple of women in a car with an open sunroof. I didn't yell, because I'm not impulsive like that. I took off my red flip-flop and chucked it at the side of their car, because I am impulsive like that. As they drove away, I wished that somehow I had been able to lob the flip-flop through the sunroof and into the car. I'm not sure why, though, since it wouldn't really have made as big of an impression as the noisy thon-nk in their side panel did. Something about carnival games, I think.

I walked home barefoot because I couldn't stand the thought of retrieving that symbol of pedestrian rage, no matter how well those flip-flops match my red kids-size soccer jersey from Costa Rica. I got dripped on a couple of times by window a/c units overhanging the sidewalk. What is worse than being dripped on? Nothing is the answer that you are looking for. I walked past sushi restaurants that were entirely too full for 9 pm on a Monday, and past that ice cream shop where we had our last great date, and then I jumped a couple of curbside puddles and came home.

Maybe in five years' time that's all that I will remember of you anyway: a flat screen image perched above an empty chest. I'm more interested in the world when I'm on my own anyway.

Currently Listening To:
Interventions and Lullabies by The Format