(no subject)
forgiveness is the release of all hope for a better past
first, in the labyrinthine depot, a man talks to me in an accent he sincerely wants me to comprehend. his factory lips press out cynicism and a carved smile, and he peppers his undertoned conversation with shouts to passing tourists, "which bus? gate 164. no, thank you, ma'am." i am half a second from spilling everything at him, asking him for the advice he wouldn't know how to give. he is cocky and is listing off the bus companies that deliver thousands into his domain every day; he has lived too long of a life to remember what it's like to feel ashamed.
i leave him standing at the top of the escalator. it's as far as they'll let us go; the underbelly of the station is reserved for those who pay. it's in these moments that i feel the closest to homeless. there are no benches, and no one around me is sitting on the floor. i lean against a wall and slowly slouch myself down until i'm discreetly seated on the floor. i do and do not want to cry, i do and do not want to call attention to myself. here i can do both. so i stand up again and walk back, determined to make my mind up one way or the other. the man no longer speaks to me.
the top of her head crests the top step of the escalator, and she is beautiful and bent, even the very top hairs on her head. her eyes don't change when she sees me, and i try to make mine stay too.
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on the roof of a boat, two days later, the last place i thought i'd be now. the brightness shining down as hard as it can, seeping through our pores and lighting up our flaws from the inside. they radiate, declare themselves as facts, are unapologetic. we wade past overturned plastic tables and chairs, the trappings of a life well worth leaving behind. i turn around to toss a memory into her eyes, a glance declaring that 'content' doesn't have to mean self-satisfied coping anymore, that 'content' can make a dictionary stand up on its own, that it includes every parsed form of every word inside, a spike of new light in a heart choked with the dark of doubt. she'll remember this, because she's known this to be a truth since before she knew how to love. what's more important is that she'll live it, maybe not now and maybe not next year. one day she will throw her hands out and let her body follow, and she will know how her future will catch her.
first, in the labyrinthine depot, a man talks to me in an accent he sincerely wants me to comprehend. his factory lips press out cynicism and a carved smile, and he peppers his undertoned conversation with shouts to passing tourists, "which bus? gate 164. no, thank you, ma'am." i am half a second from spilling everything at him, asking him for the advice he wouldn't know how to give. he is cocky and is listing off the bus companies that deliver thousands into his domain every day; he has lived too long of a life to remember what it's like to feel ashamed.
i leave him standing at the top of the escalator. it's as far as they'll let us go; the underbelly of the station is reserved for those who pay. it's in these moments that i feel the closest to homeless. there are no benches, and no one around me is sitting on the floor. i lean against a wall and slowly slouch myself down until i'm discreetly seated on the floor. i do and do not want to cry, i do and do not want to call attention to myself. here i can do both. so i stand up again and walk back, determined to make my mind up one way or the other. the man no longer speaks to me.
the top of her head crests the top step of the escalator, and she is beautiful and bent, even the very top hairs on her head. her eyes don't change when she sees me, and i try to make mine stay too.
----------
on the roof of a boat, two days later, the last place i thought i'd be now. the brightness shining down as hard as it can, seeping through our pores and lighting up our flaws from the inside. they radiate, declare themselves as facts, are unapologetic. we wade past overturned plastic tables and chairs, the trappings of a life well worth leaving behind. i turn around to toss a memory into her eyes, a glance declaring that 'content' doesn't have to mean self-satisfied coping anymore, that 'content' can make a dictionary stand up on its own, that it includes every parsed form of every word inside, a spike of new light in a heart choked with the dark of doubt. she'll remember this, because she's known this to be a truth since before she knew how to love. what's more important is that she'll live it, maybe not now and maybe not next year. one day she will throw her hands out and let her body follow, and she will know how her future will catch her.