Everything is ju st what it is to me with nothing to measure it
against and no w ay to check and I don’t have any tom orrow
and I don’t have a yesterday that I can remember because the
days and nights just go on and on and never stop and never
slow down and never turn regular; nothing makes time
normal. I have nineteen cents, I buy a big purple thing, it’s
with the vegetables, a sign says eggplant, it’s the cheapest
thing there is, I never saw one before, I try to cook it in m y one
pan in a little water, I eat it, you bet I do, it’s an awful thing, I
see w hy momma always used vegetables in cans but they cost
more. I buy rice in big unmarked bags, I think it’s good for
you because Asian people eat it and they have lived for
centuries no matter how poor they are and they have an old
civilization so it must be good but then someone says it has
starch and starch is bad so I stop buying it because the man’s very
disapproving as if I should know better because it makes you fat
he says. I just boil what there is. I buy whatever costs what I have
in m y pocket. I don’t know what people are talking about
sometimes but I stay quiet because I don’t want to appear so
ignorant to them, for instance, there are funny words that I
can’t even try to say because I think they will laugh at me but I
heard them once like zucchini, and if someone makes something and hands it to me I eat it. Sometimes someone asks me if
I like this or that but I don’t know what they mean and I stare
blankly but I smile and I don’t know what they think but I try
to be polite. I worked at the Student Peace Union and the War
Resisters League to stop the bomb and I was a receptionist at a
place that taught reading and I was a waitress at a coffee shop
that poured coffee-to-go and I typed and carried packages and
I went with men and they had smoke or food or music or a
place to sleep. I didn’t get much money and I didn’t keep any
jobs because mostly I lived in pretty bad places or on the streets
or in different places night to night and I guess the regular
people didn’t like it or wanted to stay away but I didn’t care or
think about it and I never thought about being regular or
looking regular or acting regular; I did what I wanted from
what there was and I liked working for peace and the rest was
for cigarettes. I slept in living rooms, on cots, on floors, on
soiled mattresses, in beds with other people I didn’t know who
fucked while I slept, in Brooklyn, in Spanish Harlem, near
Tompkins Square Park, in abandoned buildings, in parks, in
hallways, curled up in corners. Y ou can build your own walls.
Even the peace people had apartments and pretty things and
warm food, it seemed regular and abundant but I don’t know,
I never asked them for anything but sometimes someone took
me home and I could see. I didn’t know where it came from; it
was just like some play with scenery. They had plants or
pretty rugs or wool things or pots; posters; furniture; heat;
