Journey
the buss takes me up Wellesley Street
past the City Mission apartments
where I live
Auckland is full of hills or should that be central
Auckland. Paved with grey a smattering of foliage
young women slog in their overlong skirts going to school
I sigh
I haven’t slept
I’m scared and angry the rhythm of the bus doesn’t lull me
into a stupor
I’m waiting
to be told
the bridge past Grafton cemetery wizzes by
it’s like the wind propelled by the bus pushes itself
into the grating of the bridge and makes a noise
I lived on this part of the street in a waterlogged
shop front with the infamous Mister Organ
he almost beat the shit out of me out back in Stable Lane
years later I had an affair with the man who lived in the warehouse behind the shop front
all the pubs are gone
so are the underground toilets that one of my flatmates used to hook himself in
he thought we didn’t know
they knocked down one of the pubs to straighten the road
and now I’m round the corner
getting closer to my destination off the bus and assaulted by competing
churches selling God to the masses a cacophony of crucifixes
I walk into the building and am suddenly surrounded
by noses on legs
sniffing
sniffing my life from me reveling on the repulsive notes in my smell
screaming, “It’s alright we do DBT”