set adrift

There’s a new sign in public square that says “public bathing strictly prohibited” – I noticed it for the first time today, but it’s not warm enough for anyone to be publicly bathing and it’s not warm enough for the wimpy fountain that smells like sewer to be on anyway. But I suppose you need signs like that, so when people actually do it you can arrest them and say “see look at the sign”

I thought I was drowning at work and then I went outside to get some air and I realized how tired I was today. The bright sun hurt my eyes, but the air – oh the air was nice on my skin. I went to the bookstore with the worst poetry section I’ve ever seen, but there’s no where else to go downtown to look at books. They don’t even have the section marked – it’s all just “literature” and too expensive books and maybe about 6 poets. I’m not sure why I keep going back there – I think because it’s a somewhat safe place to go. I’d sit outside, it’s sort of nice today, but public bathers are just waiting to take their clothes off. Just waiting. I can tell.

I decided today that if I was set adrift in the ocean, just bobbing and dangling in the water with the sharks like those men from WWII, that mentally I wouldn’t make it. I’d like to think I wouldn’t drink the salt water; I’d like to think mentally I’d be strong enough to make it to the next day and the next day and through the night and not think about the dark abyss below me or the lapping or the creatures I couldn’t see nipping at my toes; I’d like to think I would stay with the group, that my mind wouldn’t start to flounder and bend and ribbon off toward a horizon or a ship that wasn’t really there. But I’m not sure that I could. Sometimes I can’t even make it through 8 hours here.