Wednesday September 22, 2004

scoffing from below

It’s easy to say you know what someone is all about upon first glance. I mean, we are a society where first impressions mean everything. If you are not a fashion model or GQ king at all times no one will give you the time of day, mostly because if you don’t own a watch then you must not be able to afford a watch, and if you can’t afford a watch, then what can you do for me? So, when I saw her walking down the street, slightly wrinkled shirt, a skirt with crisscrossed folds and shoes with very apparent mud stains; so when I saw her walking I gave only a half glance, if that. A half glance consists of the judgment gaze but then the scoffing look away that hopefully the person sees in order that they know that one does not approve of them, so they will go home and clean up their act and go shopping and become the person who we want them to be. Now I wish I had given her the full glance, now I wish I had given her the attempt at eye contact, I should have gone up to her and said “hello” or something equally trite and blatant. And now, years later she is my in all my dreams. And look at me now, considering how much time was wasted. I wish I had seen the truth inside her, on the outside. So, there she was, walking down the streets of this image town. This “wear your status” city of lust, greed, and pleasures; this short term town, this shallow wasted town. Where I missed a chance to be pulled out from this wasted hole of existence I lived between coffee shop and bar, between dance club and strangers’ bedrooms, between drugs and debauchery. And there she was walking past me, perfection in wrinkled clothes.