figuring out how to get breakfast coffee groceries not lost reading street signs dodging cyclists meandering through marketplaces bookstores delis construction zoneseverything's heightened, exaggerated
figuring out what leads to what turns into where leads me north east south west
i pass legendary familiar ordinary and lovely sites
i love a man laying prostrate on the steps of a church, unencumbered by legs, bringing him to rest that much closer against his God, sleep
slipping into a familiar bookstore for enclosure
out of nowhere my purse goes off- like, an alarm in my purse goes off
i'm receiving an emergency weather alert text message on my phone
this has never happened before so i don't recognize the sound or realize it's even me until everyone in the shop turns to look at me as though i were the disaster they were being warned about....i smile....pay for my picture postcards...scurry out the door...
just in case i had started to feel at ease
i walked past the same car wash four times today, and every time the men stared like they weren't staring, having perfected this particularly male kind of multitasking
i understand you, i think to myself, and smirk as i imagine their surprise when i talk back, "dime lo que quieras..."
outside my windows the city moves and breathes along deep grooves of rhythm and blues
and i breathe in time
holding sometimes to take it in deeper
and to feel the spaciousness given me from miles and miles away
"sad" is too small
"afraid" is staring me in the face
i'm simply overwhelmed by love
my body trembles under its weight, stretches around its size, and moves tirelessly at its urging
