previous part here: https://jordynsaelor.com/2026/10/08/wont-be-my-friend/
all parts here: https://jordynsaelor.com/cant-catch-me-now/
***
I had something nice in the city,
nice enough
I was grateful for
the safety,
the steady
work,
the
food that didn’t poison me,
the rooftop
options
I had to sleep,
the day sun and night star
that didn’t burn my skin
no matter how many hours I slept under them,
the people who got mostly used to seeing me
and didn’t frown in concern
or hide their children
when I passed
and came to me
before other doctors
with their ails.
I got something nice
but it wasn’t enough
for some reason.
The same routine
clung to me like barnacles,
the same healing runes
for the same river fish bites and cooking oil burns
left my mind bored enough
to think up horror scenarios
like
“What would I do if a hundred buildings burned down
and all the survivors came to me
and I didn’t have enough paper runes to give out to soothe blisters
and stop bleeding?”
or
“What would this city do
if an earthquake diverted the river
or entirely blocked up the wellspring in the mountain?”
or
“What if something like the caricaurs happened here?
What if these people
are fighting some other people
and keeping them from the water
and these fish bites
are actually war wounds
and I’m complicit
in a whole group of people dehydrating to death?”
Then I pretended
like I hadn’t thought all that
as if
un-thinking it
would make it never true.
And none of it
did happen (to my knowledge),
proving I was just
bored.
The same routine
just clung to me
like barnacles,
one day
added upon another
where I
pick a rooftop to sleep,
wake again,
eat again,
make some paper runes
activated by plastering to skin,
wander the streets looking for hurt people to fix up,
get paid
(or if the fixed up people can’t pay
find a relative who can
since everyone’s related to everybody some how),
eat again,
make some paper runes,
hang around the river,
talk to some people
(for the sake of my
social health),
eat again,
do various repairs on mechanical hands or clothes,
clean up,
pick some rooftop to sleep on
(and bring a tarp
if it is raining),
wake again.
***
header photo by Ammar Khan on Pexels.com
Whoa, what’s this? A new Start Here page for my site?
