8x8 is 4

the air is so heavy and hot I feel it dragging me down with each step…I wish the sidewalk would just open up and swallow me so I could get some rest but the sidewalk doesn’t want me today.

no one wants me today. especially not me.

last nite I passed a woman sitting off to the side of a huge, ritzy apartment building. I almost didn’t see her in the shadows, perched delicately at the edge of the marble planter, the top of which had jagged metal teeth sticking up out of it in an attempt to stop people from sitting there. But she was so skinny that her boney bottom was able to fit in the teeny tiny length of teeth-free space. There was the telltale overstuffed bag at her feet. She was wearing a thin leopard skin blouse and a matching scarf around her head—despite how it sounds it wasn’t over-the-top or garish. In fact there was something glamorous about her, like an antique watch with a cheap, replacement wristband in the bottom of a dusty drawer that still keeps perfect time. Her black eyes were large and perfectly round, the way eyes get when they are brimming with tears that refuse to fall, not for years. As I watched she undid the knot of her scarf, stretched the thin material over her head and retied it under her chin as a sigh shook her slight frame.

This was her home for the night…and no one cared…no one was going to step in and put a stop to it…no one was going to tell her it was going to be better and hold her in their arms.

no one was going to try. especially not me.



meanwhile, above our heads the director pumped purple smoke into the sky to play the part of galaxies spinning in time…