i was outside smoking when i
saw them. two men. heading
into the diner. one of the men
was dying.
i felt like telling him he was
wearing a nice shirt.
thin. beyond thin. curtains
drawn thin. cave thin. Styrofoam
box thin. let the cats meow their
starving selves all the way to
the kremlin thin.
the kind of thin with a lot of needles
and signatures and magazines and shrugs
from professionals, who when faced with
their limitations, defer to something higher
where daylight itself is a razor and a
roast beef sandwich is the epoch
of human existence.
humbled and ugly all at once.
the other man, similarly groomed,
walked next to him with his hand,
all tender, on his pony’s
shoulder.
not a son. not a brother. not a friend.
not a man. something else.
it doesn’t matter.
what matters is that it was made of memory.
the kind of memory where the world
does the work for you. like a treadmill.
and i knew it.
seeing shit this way can make you
feel close to everything or fucked
over by nothing.
it is incredibly disheartening the way
that something like this can change
six hours later as i sit outside
the coffee shop checking off another
place i can’t go because i want to
smash in the face in of some kid with
a light memory and heavy haircut.
who means nothing to me.
we see this way because we
were born this way and sometimes
it works beautifully.
sometimes, not so much.
sometimes, it gets confusing.
sometimes it follows you home.
where you have no choice but
take a moment to distribute the
pound evenly in both hands
and defer to the immortality
of a roast beef sandwich.
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