A Day in San Diego

Walking alone I let the World possess me.

They are beautiful and many, yet I could consume them all. Passing briskly by a sign a glow blurs my sight and burns me. I see a woman at this moment and I judge her. I think of ways to dismiss her even as the chill of winter drains me. I think of how much better I am but as this light blinds me. It is not but a few more steps and I find my place again. Left to my own accord, left unthreatened, I drop my guard, my wings, my shelter. I see children beautiful and young. I see women of all types of beauty and I think I could be happy the rest of my life with the stay of the women within my sight at this or any other moment out on the street. I think should I do something about it? There was a beautiful woman about my age and the Buddhist had gotten to her, she was shelling out something and I watched a man of great poverty approach, he hung around the nearby trash can but I imagined him going for the opportunity of her generosity. It was in this same place I stood an hour earlier with two apples. I had paid $4.00 for 4 apples at a Vons. The grocer noticed me eyeing them, I asked if these "Grapples" were just sweet apples, or a hybrid. He indicated the later and went and got a knife. He opened a package and shaved an apple, then cut a piece for me to try. It was very sweet and unusual. I watched him carry away the package. It would be thrown out so I could take one bite? I bought a different package of 4 and headed out. I ate one right away, a second while watching fire trucks pass me. I didn't want the last two. I thought I was going to see a movie so I was in that spot looking for a bum that I had passed twice. The second time I passed him I doubted him. He moved as a man of ability. Although he wore the same clothes the man walked as if he had a place to go, and it is by that, that I judged him to be someone else. I was wrong. I felt this cold. I thought how strange it me, since the last time I gave anything to a bum was because I was scared of where I was living. In the most dangerous area in San Francisco, I lived, barely housed with nothing but my mother to provide any food or clothing or shelter. I gave a bum $6.00 in hopes that he would not try to harm me or my existence on another day. So it was that the last time I gave to a bum was when I was on the verge of being one myself. None of this I was thinking about as the beautiful young woman was giving to this Buddhist who had books on Yoga. I only thought it would be funny if I took my approach as I oft tend to do in a manner most dominating and mocking by walking up to her as the Buddhist and bum try to get something from her I would ask for money too, because it would be funny, but the thought hurt me, since it's a truth I was feeling. I may not be on the verge of homelessness, though I have no home, I have recently dumped away about as much money as I make in a year, it was most of my savings, and all I get in return for that is that maybe I saved the house my mother couldn't. In her death a void was created and this void sucked away my $10,000 with no promise of anything. The Grapples as they were called could go to no one it seemed so I took out a third and ate at it. I read completely the plastic container that held the apples and I read something that set fire to my heart like a lighter, small annoying, but not so dangerous in it's standard dose. These "Grapples" were not hybrids, they were artificially flavored apples. I had paid a dollar a piece for grape flavoring on dime a piece apples. I threw what I had not eaten into the trash feeling it's better there than these lies going into the mouth of an innocent bum. I did not go to the beautiful woman handing out to the Buddhist, and none of this did cross my mind at the time, for the World was possessing me at that moment and when I turned to continue in my effort to kill my day I was blinded by the light of a sign and in my blurred vision I judged a woman as I passed.