Milwaukee Ave. by Sam Pink

    

     I stared out the window watching

 things happen on Milwaukee Avenue,

 eating pie with my girlfriend.

    2012

    Living

    What happened to me.

    Outside, someone walked up to the

 pie store and tried to come in.

    When he noticed it was locked he

 looked at the store hours.

    Saw it was closed and made a face, 

looking downward at the sidewalk.

    Then he looked up.

    We made eye contact.

    Maintaining eye contact, I picked up

my plate and took a big bite of the pie 

and made a face like the pie was too good

to endure – leaning back a little as I 

chewed, closing my eyes and touching at

my throat and face like a woman nearing 

orgasm.

    He laughed and gave me the middle 

finger before walking away – hands in

 pockets, looking down at the sidewalk.

We waited for the bus out front.

   My girlfriend called her sister,

leaning against the bus sign.

    I paced.

    The first thing I heard was, “Hey,

how’re things!”

    And I thought about how I’d answer.

    I’d answer that things weren’t

working for me.

    That there were only things.

    And I couldn’t get them to work

together.

    Other things would indicate, “No

we’re not going to work with these things.”

    I’d make like, two or three things

work then realize those two or three

things were attached to everything else,

which never worked, which stopped referencing each other and became just

things.

    And I’d be helpless again –standing

there with things in front of me.

      A pile of things, piling more but only

ever making one pile.

    A life.

    Born with it, though felt like

something that never happened.

    Not a phase.

    Not something to get over.

    But something to overlook, to forget

about.

    Something that’s there.

    I stood sweating on the street with

vague and unguided thoughts about

being an architect who knows nothing,

but tried, learning what not to do the

next time – each time having less

and less energy to produce anything.

      A series of accidents creating exactly

the same thing, resulting in the same sad

person, everything connected to time as

it happens, without any ability to turn

around and stop even for a second to

Say “what is happening” because that is

happening.

     And eventually your body just learns

to operate so slowly it looks like you stop

moving and decay – looks like you

die – but you don’t.

    Everything else around you just

speeds up and learns to look different

until you look dead by comparison.

    But it always makes sense.

    Never any errors.

    Of course.

    Of course this is what’s

happening -  I thought, standing on Milwaukee Avenue waiting for the bus.

    And it felt like things were going to

have meaning again maybe.

    Also felt like I couldn’t imagine

anything that would make me feel better.  .  .