Often, I feel rejuvenated when I control my environment. I eat right. I talk to those more enlightened and humble than I. If I listen to them, my unfocused mind inevitably pivots towards the warm blue path of understanding, acceptance, and compassion. A road these few cherished friends travel almost effortlessly. I take my coffee, a Jamaican Green Mountain roast, and saddle up in the backyard. The eastern sunrise, a book, "The Spirituality Of Imperfection", a chair and my cat, she's playing, just happy to see her pack leader outside.
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nnI don't drive
nnYears ago, I sold my vehicle and tried to "centralize" and simplify my life. So, I either walk, cycle, or take the bus to get around. Short travels to the corner store, the A&A Trading Post and even the local supermarket, usually can keep myself centered.
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nnThan, there are the other times.
nnSometimes, I have to take the bus across town. A pattern usually follows the route. And coloring can be used, as the simple blocks of clear blues and seamless lines weave through my quiet suburban neighborhood. Waiting for the 0 bus, cars weaving and tearing in front of each other, only to make a red light. Homey's with their bass turned up, it's monotonous boom pounded into my head.
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nnThe city comes.
nnThe city changes my perspective and the perspectives of those around. Things start to get grey and damp. Our populations diversity shouting louder at each stop , as new passengers board, others disband . The familiar, kind, intelligent, and off kilter regular faces on the local are now diminishing. Replaced with the shifty eyed, the twitchy and braided down, and the loudmouth drunk. A big man, used to be a golden gloves fighter, he bellows. Giving girl and her somnolent boyfriend s***. They are carrying trash bags of laundry and so crowded the bus. They are pushed up next to the fighter. She tells him to shut the f*** up. He tells her to make him. She offers the next stop. The boyfriend looks down defeated by the weight of situation and the realization that he has no chance against this man. As red and as drug and alcohol fueled as he is. His girlfriend fights the fight for both of them.
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nnNo one does or says anything to this bastard, I am as weak as the next. The couple get off at the next stop without incident. Talk is loud and growing at a quick and unnerving pace in the back. I can hear the lexicon of people fronting, dealing, and calling each other out. Shadows and black fill the grey areas and a deep darkness can set in.
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nnThen, I start to lose my bearings. I lose site of the humanism in the world. The once peaceful framework has deconstructed. Utopian dreams have receded with the evening waves. Revealing the underbelly, a sandy shore of various conch's, ghost crabs, seaweed, and the litter of humans. The leftover mass, no longer moving silently beneath the rise and flow of the tide. The mind is overstimulated, by streaks of dark reds, wild, cavernous and vacant eyes. The scope has retracted inwards and I am dizzy and sick.
nnI have to. Go to the front, to far back, excuse me, excuse me again, arm slung over my shoulder. Keep moving, clear out, sorry, open street and the night. The brief stillness of the city lights framed against the black backdrop. I am on Colfax. The main drag and it is a cold, dank, and sinuous place to wander at night. A place that often swallows up souls, if they stay to long.
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nnI try to sling my backpack on. A man giving me a wicked stare. No I don't want any. "Sweethearts" and "honey" are hollered all around. The cars speeding and the endless, scorched noises and a guy saying f*** you words to some stranger. He has never met, and the stink of overpopulation and not enough places for people to even bunk up for the night. The homeless lying in storefront doors until the morning brings the shop owners. People talking to walls, to themselves, to the sidewalk, many with Vietnam tracers following their backs.
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nnMe- twisted, torn, from the same stained fabric as those above.
nnMuddled, empty, incomprehensible, incomplete words!
nnWe spend billions on a pointless, non-existent war. It's all to much sometimes, a sensory overload of the worst kind. And I say to myself. "I can't keep up. I can't keep up". So leave me behind in these endless parking lots, and hopefully this is the last pass. A Harley, minus the muffler sprays fumes in my face and the power of the engine jars my skull. I think, as I always do. The guy on the bike is using transference from the power from the machine to massage his balls. He doesn't have it!!
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nnSo, I go a walking, just to find a space to be left alone. I need to hurry and head back home! But at this point it just isn't working. I'm to strung out on the drugs to find a straight line. I need to lay for a bit. I have lost track of time and space and direction. A ****ed up compass guiding the way I end up on the south side. The industrial district filled with rusted train tracks that go nowhere and burrow into the ground and the hard stone factories. Their breath streaming, a steady cloud of poison in the chill of the night. I dump myself down next to a sleeping man. He emanates the thick musky smell collected from time spent on the streets and alley ways of the concretejungle, of years spent on the unforgiving pavement. I stare into the sky and watch the silhouettes of bats and birds shoot and glide by. In the distance, I can hear the sad, lonely, disconnected horn of a train and picture the life of it's rumbling, crumbling mass, slowly moving along the endless tracks and lines. A dinosaur of shipping, of commerce and trade, soon to be forgotten, forever out of time.
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metamorphosis
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*I have no idea if there is a writing section, as I am new to this site and am trying to figure things out. So, I apologize if I put the this in the wrong area. The definition of a blog can be very open or many feel it is a place to express daily issues. Mine is not that but has many truths in the writing. Any help on the working of the forums and where to put writing, would be appreciated!
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