Raffi Wartanian: dear stranger who is probably homeless and has sat next to me for the past three-and-a-half hours

you think i don’t notice you sitting there

next to me?

i’ve been here

three-and-a-half hours

typing verse,

structuring plots,

and you have sat there,

right next to me,

staring blankly,

at nothing,

with feigned interest.

where did you find those papers in your hand?

the fed ex care package you cradle like a newborn,

and its accompanying papers that connect you to

a body

and time

and place

that i could never surmise

nor trust that it is any more likely authentic

than your digging it up from a trashpile

to validate a sense of justification to sit in this bourgeois café.

and the fact i think these things about you,

that i doubt your belonging here

makes me look at myself with disgust,

and ask,

“who am I?”

when i went to the bathroom,

i took everything

because i didn’t trust you;

i only left the cup of water

that kept inflating my bladder,

forcing me to confront this dilemma.

the awkwardness when I returned,

we both felt it,

my distrust alarmingly apparent;

you fidgeted, i know it,

and it made me fidget

though i never let on.

why would i think for a second that

somehow i belong here more than you do?

because there’s (more) money in my pocket?

because i was born with more opportunity than you?

how would this scene play out,

who would we be,

if the roles were reversed;

if i endured your life,

and you mine?

do i choose to distrust you,

or am i programmed to distrust you?

do i choose to obey the programming?

do you?

would you feed me if i was starving in your arms?

would you throw me a penny if i begged for salvation?

what is your name?

what is your story?

why are you this way?

why am i?

why am i unable to ask you?

i hate you

and

i love you.