Freecycle
I saw him again. What are the chances. Technically it’s only the second time we’ve seen each other. Or is it the third? No, he didn’t see me what am I thinking. It’s maybe the third time I’ve seen him and possibly he has seen me once but he wouldn’t know that because nobody remembers waiters.
I was on my bike. It was a hard day. Everyone was irritating me. From the moment I got to my training I was annoyed with people who wanted to talk to me. Even as I felt my annoyance at others I felt annoyed at myself for being annoyed. What is wrong with you I thought. Don’t be such an asshole. Sometimes I just want things to go a very certain way. Mine. My mood changed throughout the day. I got good feedback from the person I partnered with at the training. I felt like maybe I’m good at this thing I’m studying after all. Why is it so hard to accept being good at something? Or believing it. Everything I learned as a kid was about doubting yourself. I never got an unequivocal compliment from my parents. That must mean something. Meanwhile, my god this record I’m listening to right now is good.
I was thinking about how I almost ran into a car on that block earlier this year. I remember the look of horror on the driver’s face as I careened through the intersection. It seems like every time I ride my bike I have at least one near death experience. How do people do this drunk or stoned. There was some kind of festival or party happening in the park. Bands playing, people going crazy in the sunlight. It was just going to be a day where I rode by a lot of groups of people doing things that I felt alien to. It would be the same that night after the show. The rhythmic sensation of flying by vitrines full of laughter and impenetrable sociality. Right before I left my friend at dinner I felt a wall slide down inside me that signaled it was time to go. There’s no not listening to it. My efforts to push past it come across as half-hearted at best.
He was hunkered over like a linebacker. Is that the guy who plows through the crowd? Now that there’s a gay football player I might learn the rules before I forget them again. I know they have to keep the ball moving at least ten yards at a time I think. My father once watched an action movie and shouted at the screen It’s just war propaganda! B had a duffel bag over one shoulder. That sounds absurd but he had the hunch of a person walking with a big duffel bag. A steely expression of determination. An unkind face. Leaving wherever he’d been or whatever he was doing to go on to the next thing. My whole fucking day. Why do I mostly see white ones? Mostly men. Is it an indictment of my eyes or my contexts? Both probably.
I googled “Rimbaud on loneliness” and found this:
Sensation
Through the blue summer days, I shall travel all the ways,
Pricked by the ears of maize, trampling the dew:
A dreamer, I will gaze, as underfoot the coolness plays.
I’ll let the evening breeze drench my head anew.
I shall say – not a thing: I shall think – not a thing:
But an infinite love will swell in my soul,
And far off I shall go, a bohemian,
Through Nature – as happy, as if I had a girl.
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