I feel insane. I am drunk without touching a drop for 48 hours. I have wandered the city on my own, music in ears, books in hand. I have sat on the waterways and read and hours have taken off without me. I drink coffee and eat thin cake on my own in the company of the two large ladies who run the café. I watch characters galore parade through the city, the old black man with his white girlfriend, the plump beauties, the lesbian café diners. Every pretty couple.
Then my thoughts curve and jump and I feel ashamed to be part of this world. Prices on everything, chasing prizes, rising the ranks and competing with everything to be the best, the next, the biggest. Every scum and social soldier compete for a place in the race. It's an endurance race. We run and jump, dodge and weave, move around every other fast walker on the pavement. We look for a place amongst bare stone and steel, a place to escape, a place to feel. I am lost amongst intersections. Cars flash lights and strangers fuck and fight. Sleep if you can. Drink coffee to go again.
I think I am falling. I have to get out. Birds are calling me, trees await my slumbering underneath green boughs. Here are buskers and overhead walkways, the next best thing. I am diagnosed with insanity, because everyone knows, the city is the place to be. You'll come around. Kicked out the office, mix in the corridor, men with suits and bodies in aisle four.
Or maybe antibodies. I am allergic to the city and all the things in it.