I expect nothing. The sun is hot, the light ugly. I walk, when
I can, in the shade of shopfronts. My face is tight. I hope for
nothing. I see women whose money has made them old. Bright scarves
shame their skin, creamy powder clogs their eyes’ fine wrinkles, heavy
earrings, chokers, bend down their necks. Sweat drips from my fingers, and
am I like them? I see men whose eyes make me old. Taut, vicious boys in
suits glance at me once, but not again. Slow, dreamy blacks with
deep-creased hands hold my gaze, and their faces don’t change at all.
When shoulders brush my shoulders I feel bruised. The lunch hour crowd
returning from work in its good, painful shoes nearly crushes me, could
have trampled me on the pavement. Assholes with ponytails and twittering
shopgirls clatter up behind me and past, busy, sexless and quick. I
stop walking. I didn’t see him. Sure, who would want to? Filthy bum.
Smiling. Things in his mustache. Why look at a thing like that?
Why look at a thing like me? (more…)