august
i don't care if it rains or freezes
I see Jesus on my walk to work every day. He’s taped up in a window on Western Avenue just above a sign indicating where the post person should leave packages if a certain Linda Alvarez isn’t around to receive them.
He gazes out the window, facing north, and that makes perfect sense to me. His light hair, blue eyes, and olive skin have all faded to various shades of gray after years in the Chicago sun. The tape around the borders of his frame is yellowed and cracked, chipping in some areas, yet still holding him firmly in place, albeit slightly askew.
The look on his face is soft, auspicious. His eyes don’t follow me as I pass, which is more than I can say for his fleshen counterparts. Still, I try to maintain his gaze for as long as I can until his window is behind me and I’m back to work once more.
There’s a sadness to him that I carry up the block with me. The blinds behind him are always closed. I wonder if anyone is ever home.
Each time I pass him, I feel compelled to stop and take a picture. He is very handsome, after all. I like how his long hair is pushed behind his ears. I like the line of his lips. I like the depth of his brow.
The cut of his cloth is surprisingly modern. His skin reminds me of rose petals in a film noir.
Instead of photographing him, I keep walking by. I don’t stop for a closer look, mostly because I do not need to — I am certain I’ll see him again soon.
There is a steadiness between us, between me and paper Jesus. An unspoken understanding that we will commit to each other so long as the other does the same.
Each day, he can count on me to grace his presence in my nice clothes, fresh faced, my long hair blowing wildly around my face as it is wont to do in the wind tunnel that is Western Avenue. I look beautiful, even when I am scowling into the sun.
In return, I can count on his presence to guide me, to remind me that I’ve only one more block until I reach my destination. His image eases me, slows my pace.
I often wonder if I’ve discovered my own personal religion in his somber eyes, within this ritual I’ve happened upon. It feels like prayer, or something like it. Somehow, my questions have been answered. My thoughts have been heard.
I move through the motions of my day with paper Jesus in the back pocket of my head. I’m not religious or even superstitious, but I do believe in signs. What is the universe or my subconscious signaling to me in this sun-faded portrait of the holy son?
What is it that the world wants me to know or to seek? Is this some indication I’m on the right path, that I am exactly where I need to be? Is it something more abstract, or something as on the nose as stop and smell the roses?
And what does it mean that today, of all days, I would look up, almost as if on cue, to the spot I always peer at on these morning commutes, and find that paper Jesus was gone? What does it mean to me or you or anyone that his image was seemingly ripped from its rightful place and replaced with nothing but an empty space?
I stumbled into immobility as I approached his window, confirming once and for all that paper Jesus had left the building, that he no longer hung in or around the place that he’d inhabited for, I’m assuming, years, or at the very least since January this year.
All that remained was Linda’s sign and the sticky yellow residue of the tape that had held him in place to begin with.
I stood there in the sun, gazing at the empty space he’d left behind, wondering who I could tell.
I realized I hadn’t told anyone about this daily occurrence of mine. I hadn’t let anyone into this particular chapel. I didn’t even have pictures, only my word. All I had was what I knew to be true.
I wondered for a moment if what I had seen all these passing months was really real or if it was a trick of the mind, some sort of mirage that I had trained myself into conjuring up day in and day out as a sort of conduit to break up the stress and monotony that comes with stability and steady income after many years of having neither.
Ultimately, I determined he was real after all, and that he was especially real to me, despite no physical evidence. What I felt when I passed him by was true, and some truths don’t need proof in order to be proven.
Poetry practice - August
What did you think
when you caught up
and I fell behind
Was it that which
you knew all along
I couldn't be botheredListen while you read
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