There's a Man

 There's a man in the biology complex. Everyday, on the same bench, he curls up and sleeps while we arrive. When we leave, he's finishing homework. This is a man who takes off his shoes, pulls a rainbow jacket over a little head, and bares some dirty-fricking socks for the world to see, as he sleeps, unprotected, surrounded, almost homelessly in a building crawling with college kids.

There's a man in the library. Everyday, behind the same counter, he dresses up. He has a tweed suit, a comb-over, and a glare to kill the happiest reader. This is a man who thrives in books, but lives in such a nasty illusion that he can't even enjoy working the library. Blasphemy.

There's a boy sitting next to me. Everyday, I try to talk to him about something else. This is a boy who can write an entire webpage about why he likes a single band, but stops short of conversing by a mile. It's a boy who can pull out some God-given charm of a smile, and stutters his way through a three word answer to anything I say because I'm the weird one...

People are strange. People watching is fun. And all those targets- those specimens- you study... they're surrounding us, unappreciated, just waiting to have someone enjoy their brand of weird. There's proof. There's proof and it wears dirty Hane's socks, curled up on patterned cushioned benches straight from the seventies. There's proof and it growls at me from the non-fiction section. There's proof and it smiles next to me in class.