A woman passed me on the street today,
a screeching babe hanging on her hip
she had a yellow bandanna covering
a bald head.

She must have had cancer,
but I didn't think about her.
My footfalls echoed on my trip towards the corner market
three blocks down the street by the Mr. Zip
where I needed to pick up butter for my
mom so maybe my sister would stop crying
once she got her scrambled eggs.

A character screeches inside my head like that baby
a little girl whose house was on fire in the
nightmare I had night before last, but I don't think of that baby
as I pass it's cancer ridden mother, aunt, sister whatever
on the streets.

I think of me, and how I need to finish
my next chapter so maybe one day I can
catch up with society and maybe escape the plight
of my own poverty, of my own disgrace.
Maybe I'll be noticed, some publisher will let me
write about this screaming kid and he'll really like what
I put on the table, what I bring to the table.
Like the butter.

The world keeps going, but here I am
I don't care about the world outside of my own perspective and
people say that's wrong but
there's nothing I can do about it because here I am
trapped in this weird vice inside my head where a world
that isn't the one I live dances behind my eyelids
it is where I live, though, but audibly, visually, sensibly
not.

My reality
It's twisted, like the braid of that yellow bandanna
on the head of that cancer patient walking
in the opposite direction of the corner market and
the Mr. Zip.
She's probably thinking about herself, too.