public library confessions

We are a chance party of restrained baboons, with hands either holding up our chins or fidgeting in our pockets.

I observe this fact in environs neither clean nor lush, an east london public library where men gather for the warmth, free newspapers and computers. My day was unwanted and I was eager to see it pass through without event, though I was bereft of better alternatives for my life. I know this is best I'll find for now. The fact I do not feel profound despair or anxiety has to be to its credit, though I'm a little sore at this anhedonia.

I want education without the neckache, so I flick throughpages of well-regarded poets who have read far more old books than me. It's a mixture of bad jokes and invocations to dusty public school mythologies. I weep for a dearly-beloved cup of tea I consumed all too greedily earlier that day. (All our loves are snuffed as such, similar giddy rush and bitter aftertaste). I know I'm at war with time, and the more freedom I have the more I'll regret in times ahead what little I did with it.

“I sat stewing, mother. I paid homage to the common saints and grew base by degrees.“