The real me (City trekking)

 Aluminum, does that say anything to you?

The wild weeds close their flowers and fold their leaves

Evening dinner smoke dwindlings crawls out of stacks from crooked buildings

The wild grass advances forward and around abandoned broken houses

Stories of sadness and artificial failure

I write the last gasps of a dying man

Drowned by the sounds of passing internal combustion engines

Nobody hears, nobody notices,

Nobody reminds anybody

Our skewed views won’t change the world

The lamentations of the fool, “we could’ve worked it out,” loops

The layers will strip away and reveal the real me: a bum

The day before yesterday, Tuesday, somebody stole my bicycle from the bicycle rack of the main public library of the city of Detroit.

I always wondered about thieves. How does a person become one? Is it because they can’t get anything themselves? Do they do it out of maliciousness or out of necessity, and if out of necessity how did they get to the point where they felt compelled to take somebody else’s stuff. I personally dislike thieves. They destroy trust among strangers, a very poisonous thing to do, so thieves are poisonous.

I am partly at fault because although I locked my bicycle, I didn’t use a chain to tether it to the bike rack. This incident adds to my dislike of the city of Detroit.

It’s always a strange feeling when one realized that one’s been robbed, especially when one is not a thief oneself. I was mad at the thief, whoever he/she is, and I was mad at myself for not taking the right precautions. It was a good bike. I especially liked the tires which seemed to be filled with the compound that prevents easy flats. The bike was also so light, and fast.

After wishing the thief bad luck, I tried to find meaning in the act. Why did it happen on that specific day? Nothing happened before, and I’ve locked it the same way.

Maybe, I thought, it was the day I was going to be hit by a car and the forces that guide us took it from me to prevent the accident. I felt foolish thinking like that, but why not? Who’s to say? That explanation is more fun than the average I would get: it happened to teach me a lesson: get a chain next time and lock your bicycle properly in a city that is apparently full of thieves.

Today I walked towards the pawn shop where I got my first bike meaning to get another one, but I grossly underestimated the mileage, and after three hours of walking I was only half-way there. It was already after 5 in the afternoon, and shops usually close at 5 around here. There was no use in going all the way, so I walked back to the room after going to the supermarket to buy ingredients for my dinner.

In other times I would feel as if I wasted a whole day, and in fact I did, but then I thought, how was it wasted? I walked a good number of miles. That counts as exercise, and exercise is always good. I could’ve done other things with the time I spent walking but that is always the case with whatever we do: we can always do something better.

Because of the slow speed of walking I got to look at a section of the city up close, which means good thought fishing:

Oh clouds have mercy on me and block the sun while I’m on the depressing streets of Detroit. Give me patience as I walk by tire shop after tire shop, junk food joint after junk food joint, beauty shop and beauty supply stores, nail salons, liquor stores (not a bookshop in sight, not a work of art anywhere), check cashing-in-advance joints, auto part stores, and cell phone kiosks by the hundreds it seems.

Make me tune out the ridiculously loud booming sounds from passing EDUs (earth destroying units, AKA, cars), and ignore people’s abysmally self-destroying ways. The worshipping of EDUs is so very strong here, it’s maniacal.  Didn’t their god tell them not to worship false idols? – I’m so close to label them one of the stupidest beings on this planet.

They are so fast in their capsules but move so slowly when they get out of them: engorged ticks out to engorge themselves even more.

It’s a good thing I’m OK with myself. I can spend days and days alone. There was a time when I went from task to task, from anticipated event to anticipated event, from weekend to weekend, party to party, relationship to relationship, and the gaps in between were filled with entertainment: movie theaters and television. I never had time to really be with myself.

Most people I see around here are like I was years before. I see them as undeveloped mes. I don’t think I want to talk to the me of years ago. I was a moron.