No hope kids are bruised

What was I going to say? Something about the violent moods of my soul. I think I grow more and more poetic. Perhaps I restrained it, and now, like a plant in a pot it begins to crack the earthenware.

There was once a man who lived in apartment 5C of my building on Roosevelt Way in Seattle, Washington. He was a middle aged man, who had seen enough of the world and didn’t care for the dreary streets of the University District. I couldn’t tell you what he was doing there, probably working a job, but there was no telling what brought him to apartment 5C. He had a face carved out of wood and stone. The hair from his ears made it hard for him to hear. Since his wife had left him, he had been too depressed to trim them as often as he used to. One day, he left his home without his umbrella. The sky hunched in silver clouds. The spring wind had sprung up, kicking up all the dust and dead leaves. The man felt the stir of the Earth, but cursed the wind for being bothersome, that day, of all days. The bus was on time, but that didn’t stop the man from inhaling the pungent odor permeating from that morning’s motley crew of bus riders. There were commuters, students, nannies, their charges, their strollers, and a number of garbage bags, full of clothing, crammed into the grocery roller, belonging to a haggard, old woman. Her face was dirty and her clothing was soiled. She reeked of urine and despair. The man turned up his nose, as he sat across from her. She stared at him, as he looked at his watch to check the time. Her teeth were broken and her hair hung in dull wiry tangles. She stared at him and he checked his watch again, already forgetting that the time was 9:36 in the morning. She stared at him and he wondered what day it was, but he never wondered what the woman was staring at. Finally he looked down into her eyes, afraid. She looked into his, knowing. He felt pity and shame for his mistakes. When he broke his gaze, for a place on the floor, she turned, looking out the windshield of the bus. He was relieved. It was hard to stare Truth in the face.

Artists are people driven by the tension between the desire to communicate and the desire to hide.

I taste her and realize I have been starving.