We

By Neil Schloesser
Contributing Writer

We are not looking. We are not watching. We are seeing. That is all. You’ve seen us. We walk the streets at night. Alone. With claustrophobic eyes and ajar expressions. Sometimes with a heavy jacket in the summer. Sometimes with shorts in the winter.

We walk. We are alone. We are removed. We are sober. We are the inhabitants of the cracks. We are an invention. We are super sane like the Joker but without the urge to bother. Sometimes we fidget. Often times we avert our eyes. Sometimes we look autistic. Sometimes we look aloof but we are only seeing.

We are night crawlers, or night worms, or just hyper-real, but we are the ones who emerge at dusk to walk the night. We avoid bars and scenes but we are drawn to the activity like a crowd to a crime scene. We crave people like a person craves sex but we want nothing to do with people.  We want to belong but know better. We want to talk but understand that people only want to hear their own voices, so we save our own and walk around like mute witnesses.
   
We take to the night because the day has been full of ourselves. A change in scenery is needed. We head downtown to see. We are passive, like grass blowing in the wind or a spectator watching a movie. The colors, smells, and textures glides over us like a kaleidoscope. We don’t watch or look. We are without intention. We only go. We direct our feet, sometimes, but we do not direct our sight. We see things as they are and every day we see new. The same house, the same block, the same city, is always new. We find joy in trees waving in the wind or standing in the calm air. We find joy in the shadows of a garbage can. We find joy in the mundane which is why you see us, alone, wandering throughout downtown, arms attached to our sides and eyes fixed anywhere but yours, looking at shadows and light and listening to cars pass and trees’ rustling leaves.

People believe they’re big. Big things change slowly, glacially. No one is big yet the world is full of big people. We can see you from afar. There’s no reason to get close. We know what we’ll find.  In a strange twisted way it’s us and we get enough of us as it is.

We want to belong. We want to laugh and get lost in merriment but there are too many people. Too many eyes. Too many voices. We need commotion without noise. We need excitement without commitment. We need to see so we can see.

We are out at night. You’ve seen us. We are at the edges. We look odd. We look weird. We look out of place. But we’re not. We are seeing, not looking, not watching, just seeing. 

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