suburb

I lived in the suburb.

oh yeah,

I sold the car,

others were polluting the earth enough. 

I kept the bike,

for lonely summertime rides.

I sold the big fancy apartment 

too a two-room was enough

for me and my loneliness.

I was a teacher now

my students looked up to me

I looked down to myself.

mistakes you carry make you heavy. 

They didn’t know I struggled

with a sickness before

with an addiction

called perfectionism.

even though I was their teacher 

they taught me great things

they taught me that

good enough is enough.

when I arrived at the door,

the rain stopped.

a fight broke out at the entrance

of the next building

between some

of the neighbors

and five eager youths

who eagerly sold drugs.

they were a product of socialism

left in the suburb to die.

I observed it from a distance

too old to interfere

too broken to heal them.

people who lived on the first floor

were involved in the fight.

they wasted their effort

and time

on arguing with foolishness.

I observed it with ease

the young couple on the fifteenth floor 

looked down from their bedroom window 

but since they could not see clear

what was going on

they thought that it was a family reunion 

so they wave at the others

downstairs

smiled and moved on.

I observed it peacefully.

the young man on the twenty-sixth floor 

didn’t even bother to look down.

he couldn’t hear what was going on 

down stairs

instead he pulled his curtains together. 

I realise the higher you soar

the less important it becomes to you 

what others do.

the fight escalated.

one of the youths drew a knife out 

the other a pistol

they heard a siren

and ran.

I entered the apartment,

and went to take a cold shower.

it was colder than I thought

the water

like those snowflakes

falling on the red nose of a hungry 

soldier in a foreign cold country 

older than history itself

before the war.