I walk along the dirty and decaying sidewalks.

Smog and exhaust fill my head.

I watch everybody,

Look and try to read minds of the people I pass.

Are they happy?

Content in their life?

What is in their eyes that draw me I am not sure,

Mutual loneliness?

I see a mother and her child walking fast

The lady dragging the child like a rag-doll.

The girl small and delicate,

Running to keep from falling.

Her blank eyes peek out from

under her stringy blond hair,

begging anybody watching for help.

Latter, alone at a café table with

my thoughts and a Henry Miller book.

Voices surround me,

none directed towards me,

thank god,

I guess.

I drink my coffee watching and listening.

The world is my movie screen.

Everybody an actor or actress.

All of us in a scratchy black and white movie.

The look in their eyes as they see their lover,

or the look of perpetual loneliness.

All look cheap and esoteric.

I want in their head,

Is it that I want to mix their humanity and despair

with mine?

Sometimes even I am on the screen.

Everybody watching me in my bad times

laughing and enjoying

knowing it is me fucking up

not them.

03/11/2003

Posted on 03/12/2003
Copyright © 2025 Derek Gregory