The missing innocent terror that attempted to distract me from this gaze left a sinking feeling that nostalgia often does. I’m familiar; recognizing and being recognized. The narrow slit, that has sheltered what exists within the cracks, just ends up expanding. Soon it resembles a coast eroded by the shit desperately clinging to it. Some of it slides off, as if any connection to the surface could prevent such ruination.

I’ve learned that most people live under overpasses when it comes to this shit. Always bragging about the thickness of the concrete beneath their feet, or their proximity to some run-off. The stoic types; trudging through the gutters, eyes down, fantasizing about the horde of phantom eyes pleading for their attention, are just the same.

I thank them for their performance of service. To commuters, it gives a superficial comparison that has saved a lot of time when explaining.

The chasers, ugh, what useless fodder. Like how a pipe rusts away and becomes complete and utter dogshit, these things find a way. Seeping into your peripheral and disrupting the hum. How available is a broken? tailpipe? One-thousand dead ants? Your mothers first tampon? Why consider something sweet when it’s inedible?

Scraps.

Like a drywall punch through your solar plexus, you’re letting weakness invade. Never inevitable, always more trouble than it’s worth. Best to ignore.

Collectors are even more pathetic, as they feign satisfaction to whatever external world that will interact with them. Frame the soiled underwear you wore in 4th grade. Next level with the postirony that paints their face. Watch the wrinkles form as their treasure is seized or without reach.

Memories fade too; Memories burn too.

Cling onto your feeble religion, and replace routine with ritual. Only useful as a tear-eyed listing that exposes how much the down-and-out seller chose to know about the mess in the living room their raising money to clean up. Good riddance.

I don’t claim to to be of any higher plateau. However, I claim a knowledge with mild participation.

The seekers. There’s a breed of pseudo-intellectual dogs that prey on the experiences from the fringe, and report back with inane smut that revels in its absence of sex. I respect the pure diligence these scum have in reproducing themselves. Insane to profit off of abuse, and still have the cunt-like entitlement that comes with that trepid stare as they call you disgusting.

They hesitate before they spit, and more often than not, they miss. So they have coalesced to their own sewer, jacking themselves off with rotten mucus.

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