it's my seventh month here
Feb. 22nd, 2022 12:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
g3ryonTo travel any distance demands some sort of movement. To move around this city, as much as any other, usually means to walk constantly if one’s body allows: passing every corner, bump in the sidewalk, every shadow that might be lurking. I remember the ache that would harden in my stomach after hours of walking within the first few days of moving here. That ache has long disappeared, but it took a while to get used to. Being this free.
At least there are sidewalks here. Sometimes shaky, as pavement tends to be, and always littered with something, everything. Cigarette butts. Ripped flyers. Spilled drinks, missing socks, plastic bags flying through the wind. Small remnants of food or broken glass. Occasionally, small specks of forgettable green trampled beneath stone. And words, sometimes carved or sprayed onto the surface, funny or crude or endearing. Each new walk presents within itself a small game, of looking at the traces other people leave behind when going from one spot to another. One foot in front of the other again and again, moving like scissors, developing a pace. All that matters is getting to the destination.
Most times, though, the sidewalks here are so even that they look as if they had been pulled straight out of a map. One long strap of concrete, neatly divided by blocks, wide and even and flat. A city designed for loneliness, and designed well. Sidewalks that frame the point where memories converge, the bleeding of day into night, and movement disguised as independence or freedom. Time seems to move faster the more even these sidewalks are, the pavement absorbing each step like memory foam. It must be nice to have this much evenness all throughout life: to never lose balance or worry about falling into a gaping hole. At least there are sidewalks here.
Maybe one only really notices these things when they are walking alone, or has never walked much. Every sensation is enlarged when no one else is walking beside me, and I never seem to know if my body is swelling or shrinking. How I look like to others. Back then, invisible sidewalks meant invisible people. But within every modern city lies an inherent impatience to not become invisible to machines of concrete and smoke, or to the specter of the night.
And maybe loneliness is a knife. The sun has left too soon. I let my hair down and notice its length on my back. The blades of my legs move systematically now. A slight weight in my pocket where the pads of my fingers cushion hard plastic. Nails digging through skin. I don’t listen to music when walking anymore, and maybe I never should have done so. Paying complete attention to my surroundings is fragile now. The litter I recognized previously is now indistinguishable in the dark, blending with the imminent impermanence of my shadows. Not every sound that is revealing itself belongs to me. Every step eats away at time, a fatality slicing through each missed mark. At least there are sidewalks here. Movement as proof of life, an incentive to survival. I skim the fences and turn the corner where the playground I passed earlier is now empty and strange. My pace slows down momentarily at the sight of other people, whose voices travel faintly in the night. My feet reach the gate and as I regain my breath, the sky seems to clear up. My mother’s face flashes through my mind.
I slide my card through the reader and go up. Lock the door. Turn on the light. The mirror quickly reflecting my covered face. The last opened tab on my computer screen staring back at me where the cursor still hovers over three words. It’s still too early to call this place home.
At least there are sidewalks here. Sometimes shaky, as pavement tends to be, and always littered with something, everything. Cigarette butts. Ripped flyers. Spilled drinks, missing socks, plastic bags flying through the wind. Small remnants of food or broken glass. Occasionally, small specks of forgettable green trampled beneath stone. And words, sometimes carved or sprayed onto the surface, funny or crude or endearing. Each new walk presents within itself a small game, of looking at the traces other people leave behind when going from one spot to another. One foot in front of the other again and again, moving like scissors, developing a pace. All that matters is getting to the destination.
Most times, though, the sidewalks here are so even that they look as if they had been pulled straight out of a map. One long strap of concrete, neatly divided by blocks, wide and even and flat. A city designed for loneliness, and designed well. Sidewalks that frame the point where memories converge, the bleeding of day into night, and movement disguised as independence or freedom. Time seems to move faster the more even these sidewalks are, the pavement absorbing each step like memory foam. It must be nice to have this much evenness all throughout life: to never lose balance or worry about falling into a gaping hole. At least there are sidewalks here.
Maybe one only really notices these things when they are walking alone, or has never walked much. Every sensation is enlarged when no one else is walking beside me, and I never seem to know if my body is swelling or shrinking. How I look like to others. Back then, invisible sidewalks meant invisible people. But within every modern city lies an inherent impatience to not become invisible to machines of concrete and smoke, or to the specter of the night.
And maybe loneliness is a knife. The sun has left too soon. I let my hair down and notice its length on my back. The blades of my legs move systematically now. A slight weight in my pocket where the pads of my fingers cushion hard plastic. Nails digging through skin. I don’t listen to music when walking anymore, and maybe I never should have done so. Paying complete attention to my surroundings is fragile now. The litter I recognized previously is now indistinguishable in the dark, blending with the imminent impermanence of my shadows. Not every sound that is revealing itself belongs to me. Every step eats away at time, a fatality slicing through each missed mark. At least there are sidewalks here. Movement as proof of life, an incentive to survival. I skim the fences and turn the corner where the playground I passed earlier is now empty and strange. My pace slows down momentarily at the sight of other people, whose voices travel faintly in the night. My feet reach the gate and as I regain my breath, the sky seems to clear up. My mother’s face flashes through my mind.
I slide my card through the reader and go up. Lock the door. Turn on the light. The mirror quickly reflecting my covered face. The last opened tab on my computer screen staring back at me where the cursor still hovers over three words. It’s still too early to call this place home.
