i love myself
My walk is past a seated woman - the time was wrong on the library clock and the librarian did not seem to mind. Leaving her to think that I too had little hold for time, I passed a boy stood outside who was engaged in the tidy flipping of a rolled cigarette.
I
crossed the road and as quiet as it was, I questioned in a frantic inward way, whether or not my skip should land to the left or the right of the low running wall. From here I could see beneath the summer growth, that a ride not unlike the one I hoped to catch, was stopped and appeared to be waiting. I decided on the left, where the green of cut grass struck me in its tempting ways of the fresh that keeps us all going. Hopping one leg to follow the other into the first step, as I grip the waistband of my pants and begin to open my stride; running now for peace of mind, if nothing else. Arriving at the far side of the road, where I can see that the bus is going another way, I slow to a stop and start walking now along a path, between the haunches of trees which line the way. I walk past the seated woman, and knowingly look away at the point where I feel close enough to be seen for what I am. In this movement, I note that she has begun to look my way. She is seated on the bench one before where I was headed. In a turn of my head I am moved as though to suggest that my interest is elsewhere. It no longer is. I realise that I do not feel comfortable in walking straight past her to the bench further up, yet I do not wish to sit down with her, and so I edge out through the trees and make my crossing, stepping into the road. It seems more dangerous than my commitment to this cause, but half the way across, my idea is to check the times of the bus, which I already know. I do so and cross back with nothing coming. A short time passes and she disappears. Some more, and my bus comes. By chance or impulse, we have both passed the same point. The moving traffic builds and dies, and in the quiet before the bus came, when I was the only one sat by my side of the road, I was happy to observe myself from another’s eye, pleased enough by what I saw. Not wanting any more.