is was that

awake in an upright seated position. odd. not exactly sure how i got there. but my life isn't blurry upon waking, and i suppose that's about as much as you can ask for.  get up. some mysterious leftover skittles for breakfast. go for a walk.

the bright sunshiny day makes me cringe. without sunglasses, everyone can see the unnecessary scars from the night before, still healing as i saunter down the sidewalk. a very spritely, and dare i say enterprising, young gentleman passes on my left. tall and lean. glasses. kind of a gump from what i can tell of his gait, his striped polo, khakis and new balance running shoes. somehow a stark contrast from my well-worn black dress pants, misfits t-shirt, cardigan, old-ass old navy flip-flops. a certain derelict ostentation. but the most important difference being that it is the third day of donning this particular ensemble, whereas his getup looked crisp and fresh. i wonder if he notices the nuance. i wonder what i am to him.  i wonder if he can hear the cyanide capsule rattling around in my pocket.

while i walk, memories pummel my brain into the form of the night before. my phone insists that i recall when my sex went to sleep, and i take a jab in the throat from religious discussions that were never meant to become arguments. and i have to ponder what's been making that shape in my sails of late.

the slumbering public house to my left claims it has been "sharing beers for 25 years." and i think that "sharing" carries implications that cannot be drawn parallel to past processes. but then, many claims are made in inebriation that cannot be satisfied in sobriety. the parking lot attendant at the church seems to suggest that christ has no interest in sharing pavement. i can't tell if the lot is full for the service or for the art festival. 

ART FESTIVAL jumps out of the cata bus as it hurtles past the pedestrians. the letters on the destination sign in capitals as if screamed with the terribly familiar excessive exuberance ofderated by their own formulas of gloom and doom and glad and sad, expressly hidden by their desire to survive through tha soccer mom, planning for months this occasion of rare freedom and festivity, the equivalent of shaking out all the value from any artistic notion conceived by the human spirit and seeing how far you can spread it without causing a tear in profit margins. but they do accept AmEx, I will not fault them for that. I see these people, their enthusiasm being a result, the top layer of fat over their desperation to survive the rest of the day without the twinge of despair inherent in the question of the days ahead. They carry the day on their backs in a manner completely dissimilar from my own conveyance. We stare each other down at a crosswalk. And they know. And I know. And they know that I know. And I know that they know that I know. And so on and so forth in that fashion and the reverse. But what exactly we know is unknown, apart from the certainty of the shrieking terror that lies just beyond our periphery, that the knowledge lacks cognizance, and we're building our houses on sand.

eventually i return to my de facto homestead, a place to relax and reflect, and before long, the page is filled, and i can sleep again.