Hobo blues

Rain-soaked black cobblestone, narrow streets of one-way traffic and you freeze right to the bone, no matter. The song of their words, we stand on the subway train mimicking them with pursed lips, I paint the map in my head, again, again, filling them in with street names and corner bistros. At the pyramid, a face from so long ago; at the Bastille, a face from when the old town was new, dinner is all red wine and catching up, by the time we leave the restaurant the rain has stopped.

How life looks different when the land moves beneath you. How the skyline paints its contours across your to-do list and leaves it freer than before, liberated by possibility. You know this is the charm of the drug. You breathe in deeply.

Pretend you can quit if you want to.