{dated before July...}There's life going on out there. Even in this out of the way forgotten little neighborhood, on this two block long street, cars pass by once in a while, the UPS truck, a skinny black woman pushing a bicycle with no seat.
Pecan trees grow like weeds in this town, and crepe myrtles grow in their shadows like younger siblings with bows in their hair, pink, purple, white.
Turtle doves and noisy black grackles busy themselves from limb to limb. Life is short but they make the best of it.
Daytime, it's so slow around here. There's probably more activity in the cemetery than there is at 1003 E. 15th Street.
Brianne is a massage therapist and she works out of her house sometimes but she does a lot of out calls, too. In the early evenings she answers the phone and does office work at a meditation center in South Austin. She's a Buddhist. I guess that's why she's so calm all the time. She is around me anyway. I made a comment about it and she said, "I'm not calm!" But she is. Maybe she's just extra careful not to get excited around me because of my delicate condition, or what she considers to be my delicate condition.
I want to shake her up like a snow globe, just to see.
Maybe it's racist of me to think so, but she's a black chick, she should be able to get down, right?
Yeah, that's racist. Not every black chick gets down. Maya Angelou probably doesn't "get down."
She offered to give me a massage for free and I told her that sounds good, but I really don't want to take my clothes off in front of her. I don't know if she's ever given a massage to a leper, but that's what I look like under my costume. She knows there something wrong with me, she knows I'm Sick, but I don't want to have the conversation with her about my body:
"No, they don't really hurt, they're just little skin cancers, that's all. Rub away!"
I look in the mirror and I don't see me anymore. I see a medical experiment. Or maybe I'm more of a social experiment. "Pay attention, class, this is what happens to the homosexuals, prostitutes and drug addicts who make foolish choices."
Pecan trees grow like weeds in this town, and crepe myrtles grow in their shadows like younger siblings with bows in their hair, pink, purple, white.
Turtle doves and noisy black grackles busy themselves from limb to limb. Life is short but they make the best of it.
Daytime, it's so slow around here. There's probably more activity in the cemetery than there is at 1003 E. 15th Street.
Brianne is a massage therapist and she works out of her house sometimes but she does a lot of out calls, too. In the early evenings she answers the phone and does office work at a meditation center in South Austin. She's a Buddhist. I guess that's why she's so calm all the time. She is around me anyway. I made a comment about it and she said, "I'm not calm!" But she is. Maybe she's just extra careful not to get excited around me because of my delicate condition, or what she considers to be my delicate condition.
I want to shake her up like a snow globe, just to see.
Maybe it's racist of me to think so, but she's a black chick, she should be able to get down, right?
Yeah, that's racist. Not every black chick gets down. Maya Angelou probably doesn't "get down."
She offered to give me a massage for free and I told her that sounds good, but I really don't want to take my clothes off in front of her. I don't know if she's ever given a massage to a leper, but that's what I look like under my costume. She knows there something wrong with me, she knows I'm Sick, but I don't want to have the conversation with her about my body:
"No, they don't really hurt, they're just little skin cancers, that's all. Rub away!"
I look in the mirror and I don't see me anymore. I see a medical experiment. Or maybe I'm more of a social experiment. "Pay attention, class, this is what happens to the homosexuals, prostitutes and drug addicts who make foolish choices."
