The Thingy

No time for my life.

As we get older we run into the overdose of requirements of past connections. These expand as we move, as we stretch and walk, like that chemical reaction thingy that expands as it touches water, exponentially. the more real life it is exposed to, the more the thingy expands until there is no room for my own life. i can’t breathe. you can’t breathe, and most of all, the cops don't even have breath. robots! so they choke the life out of me, out of you. and while i’m waiting for this to happen, minding my own business, i can’t breathe because of the cigarettes i smoked that ruined my lungs. it tastes like fire deep down in there. or at least some completely other language.

Which is fine. if i could learn the language i’m sure i'd be fine. so i set out on a series of visits to learn the new language. but the very first visit was to a snake, who lived across the street. hiss, hiss, hiss he said as a fine greeting. and that made no sense to me at all. have a fine day i said as I proceeded down the street.

The next visit was to a tree, who said nothing at all, but had a very fine posture. i could feel the sap rising in the springtime air. the buds were pushing and the morning sky was crystal blue. 

My third visit was not a visit at all, as some young men were sitting on their stoop and as i didn’t know them, i nodded politely and moved on. there was a politeness that pervaded and a curiousity as we both proceeded into the depths of our days.

However, once i turned the corner i heard from afar, as if in an echo between the canyon of the houses what sounded like “kleptomaniac!" someone was calling me kleptomaniac! klepto, klepto, klepto! it was like a chant, a rude awakening, a bird chirpping and yapping in the morning, so early the other birds haven’t started the concerto yet. so naturally, the only new words I could learn were KLEPTO and maniac. As I went on my visits then, i went maniaclly and tried to keep the klepto to a minimum. there’s cops breathing around here somewhere, i just know it.