Scratch

This is my life now.

Scratch

on the record. My mind skips with each yellow light. Backwards toward some shit job I held before. Forward to the shit job tomorrow. The scratch in my minds record. The same decisions, the same results. The needle of my life goes over it again and again.

Scratch

paper. The faint and cryptic message that someone needed to communicate. Mainly to themselves. The brief, loopy, illegible scratch paper. The record of human interaction which cannot and will not reveal itself.

Scratch

the walls. Go up and down and around them. It's too cold. Claw at the wall. Write on the walls. Do anything to expand these walls. If I stay hereany longer I'm going to start to

scratch

my arms until they bleed. So I know I'm here. So I'm more than a scribble or a wall. Claw at myself, abuse myself until there is nothing left to

scratch.

What's my excuse?

I arrived at the bus stop, the bus arrived at the bus stop. The various residents of the City Mission filed onto the bus. None of them have a car. A DUI here, a repossession there. Their lives of minor gains and heavy losses leaving them without basic transportation.

What's my excuse?

They live on the arbitrary generosity of the rich. Their food is expired green beans and creamed corn the kids won't eat. What little sustenance they get is floating and grease and ruining their stomachs. A meth bender here, a nasty divorce there. Choking down leftover leftovers with shady potatoes. Old meat, or new cheese.

What's my excuse?

They live in a barracks. Bunk beds and one kitchen. Cleaning up the goo of their howling bunk mates. Everyone around me. Cramped. Their crusted eyes look forward. Not a word is said. A sniffle here, a lung-wrenching wheeze their. Sick from the constant exposure to the bacteria of the lowest caste.

What's my excuse?

They will die in utter obscurity. The lucky ones will get an actual grave. Once again I am the most educated person on the bus. Their haggard smiles fill the bus with a Picasso skyline. I, the one person with any grasp of Sartre, stain my teeth with coffee and go back to my book.

What's my excuse?