Cracked, Like a Shattered Bowl

This morning I sit in the Port Authority Bus station next to J, watching pidgeons fly about inside the building.



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She is taking the Twelve Thirty bus to Jersey in a few minutes and we have time to kill. Her friends, Breaking and Entering, have already left for Florida, catching an early flight out this morning. We talk about her time here in the big city. She seemed to have enjoyed herself with her friends. I'm glad that she did. I feel like an ambassador of New York, making sure that everything goes well while she is here, as if I have control over anything.

I am powerless to do nothing. That's a play on words there. Having no power to do nothing at all. New York is New York. It is what it is. The press of humanity is a nice change for her, but she needs her space in Florida. New York's lack of space would bother her in time. I understand how she feels. I've been in the press here for all my life. It's somewhat comforting. Although you can be alone in the masses. A contradiction of terms so to speak. The open spaces gets to OBSIDIAN and I think it would do the same to me after awhile. I've lived in California and Massachusetts and New Hampshire, and I've always come back to the City. The prodigal son. Home is home, huh?

New York is trying to shake me loose. I have no home here, and if I had common sense I would and should return to my parents in the South. To pull up the few pitiable stakes here and move my ass down to start anew among new surroundings. Become all that I can be in North Carolina.

Fuck no. That's what I have to say to that. I have no compunction or intention to move down there. It's not an option. I'd rather die in New York than to live in North Carolina. New York can shake me all it wants, like a dog digging at a flea, but I'm not going anywhere. I'm here to stay even if I have to return to the streets and live my life like my brother. I know, I'm a shelt now. But a shelt still doesn't have a home.

Further I'm not courting the new threat...the SCHNAPP.

Yes, my brother and I have penned another word to our lexicon. The SCHNAPP.

How did we get this new word. Well, let me go into the back story. This evening my brother and I are walking down the street when we happen to come across an Asian woman that we know. She lived in the streets like Electra and she kept herself up like Electra. She was a modest dresser, clean, well groomed. She slept somewhere, probably she was a shelt, probably she had a comfortable corner of the street, but she looked well rested. In other words, she passed for you. She looked like an everyday woman on a walk down the street. Very little baggage in her hands, sometimes a cup of coffee. She's a commuter going to work, a mother going shopping, a woman on a stroll. She was everyday, but we knew her as one of us because we would see her daily on the soup lines.

Well we walked past her sleeping on the benches in front of the Business Library tonight. Her hair was standing on end, her clothing unkempt, as she slept under a ratty blanket. She looked insane. My brother says he's seen her wandering the streets, with a vacant stare, walking and talking to herself. She was blasted out of her mind.

The streets are hard. Very hard on the mind. The lack of shelter, a home, a life, wears the mind down. The despair is great, and the problems, the minor things in life, are even greater. The weight of the world was so great upon her, as well as the hopelessness, that something in her gave way. Something in her SCHNAPPED. Cracked like a shattered bowl went her skull. She had joined the Skeksis in seconds, like a flip of a switch. In no time now she will sink into the mire, and join the walking dead. She'll walk around barefoot in the cold, her clothes exhausted about her frail body. There is no future for her. There is nothing left.

And that's why my brother and I stay so busy. And that's why we go through the motions of a schedule. That's why we work hard on our poetry and the SHOUT OUT. That's why we do a nine to five in the Business Library. We keep our MINDS busy. We keep doing something that takes focus, because it's easy to sit around and do nothing all day. To literally vegetate in your own brain. You can get lost in nothing. In sitting and watching life pass you by. You can lose your way in familiar country.

No matter how dull or boring it gets in the Business Library, no matter how we hate being there because of overbearing security guards, no matter how this entire thing feels like a nine to five. We will be there, we will have a routine. It's the routine that keeps you together. It's the glue.

J gets on a lengthy line and her bus arrives. She heads out to the bus, and I head to the job. I work a half a day, and I'm paid a little more than I should. I'm surprised, but I need the money so I take it gratefully. I head over to Starbucks and get online. I'm glad to be on once more, doing what I do best. Head bowed, fingers flying over my keyboard, concentrating on my blogging. My brother soon joins me, and Electra comes in and sits on the other side of the establishment. OBSIDIAN and I jam, laughing and joking about the current events of the day. What is amazing to us today? An exoskeleton made in Israel that allows people without the use of their legs to walk. They have a wheelchair bound man walking about town all day, working, sightseeing, going up and down stairs. Amazing.

It's time for me to return to the Box. It is hot and sweaty in the dorm, like walking into a locker room. There are too many men and not enough air conditioning . It is sweltering. It can make a man mad. I sit on the edge of my bed and blog. Angel approaches me with a pair of Timberlands, playing salesman. He wants me to be the first one to buy them. I should look at my shoes, he tells me. They are ratty compared to the Tims. I endure this salesman crap until I can take it no more. I tell him to leave the shoes and I'll try them on. I cave.

The lights are out now. Everyone is in bed around me. I continue to blog. I'm going to finish before I hit the sack. The time is creeping towards Eleven PM.

It's' time to shut down.

I didn't SCHNAPP today.

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