Perfect Like a City Bus

          "I don't think I'll be falling in love anymore," she said as she puffed her newport. She sat across from me on the cold blue steel of the transit benches. Her whole demeanor was a story in itself.

          "Why is that?" I ask not taking my eyes away from the blurring the street cars and passing pedestrians. I've heard a million claims like hers, including my own.

          "Because..." she does this dramatic pause as she inhales the cigarette heavily. She probably knocked three years off her life in the hit. "Love is overated."

          I glance and she fishes in a large purse that undoubtedly housed her meager living. February weather blew a gust of wind that sent chills up my spine, and I pull my jacket closer. I study her. She looks beat up... life was kicking the crap out of her. I study myself and my hackneyed sneakers. Life does that, ya know, makes you look pretty beat up. I feel her pain, though. Anybody sitting at a bus bench in the middle of february on a late night can understand her. It's the struggle.

          "My mama said loves not overated, it's the people we love." Actually, I came up with the philosophy myself, but rarely do people disagree with a mother's words. She shakes her head in agreement, and I wish my mother had really told me. However, some things you're just doomed to learn on your own, and it hurts.

          I finally look in her eyes, red and puffy. Swollen from her tears and weary from endless thoughts.

          "He ain't even care. He just left me."

          "Damn."

          "Yea."

          She flicks her cigarette butt into the street. I listen to cars whizz by. I think she isn't old enough to smoke, but neither am I. I noticed this thing about transit people, alot of them have these sad stories. It isn't always said, but you feel it in their walks and you see it in their smiles. The homeless man grins, but behind those bright eyes is a sadness. The well-dressed guy with the newest Jordans on climbing aboard the bus. On the outside he looks like he'll be going to club as soon as twelve comes around, but then you realize he's on the bus too. Nobody is perfect on the bus. Nobody is perfect in life.

          "And I ain't never had a nigga care!" Was she talking to me? Yes, and I give a contemplative and concerned stare. I shake my head in disbelief of her lover without a face. She goes on and on about him, but it's so typical it bores me.

          "Damn."


          That's all I say and can say. Life is like that. I don't know this broad from a bucket of paint on the sidewalk, but I know how she feels though. I just don't say I do. I let her cry silent tears with the occasional ragged heaves of the chest. One day those tears will be on the inside, but when the pains fresh, it always comes out pitiful and forlorn. She reminded me of movies where someone finds a litter of kittens in a box in a dark ally. The kittens are all dirty, mud smudged on its whiskers, mewing and going on. In the movie I seen, some benevolent little boy or girl helps the little furries. I am not that kindly child, she isn't a damned kitten, and did I mention I hated that movie?

          "You probably thank I'm crazy, I'm sorry." She wipes her eyes and nose with her sleeve and fishes in her purse. She pulls out another cigarete. I hear the jingling of change that she fishes from the bottom.

          "I don't think you're crazy." A long pause ensues as she sniffles. "The bus fin to be here in a minute," I add soothingly.

          Sure enough, there came our hero on six wheels. I'd pay my 1.50 and climb aboard a warm bus and go home. My dad will be knocked out on the sofa, too tired to care where his little girl has been. I'll get out of this damned cold, and I can smoke a cigarette in my bedroom and dream of things that will never come. I'll dream of love while I make do with lust. I'll smile in the mirror and say one day somebody will think I'm pretty and not just potential cum. I give a wry smile. My mind will wonder of what will become of the girl jilted at the bus stop, and sleep will come. Like I said, Nobody is perfect on the bus. Nobody is perfect in life.