By renouncing the political game, eschewing all entrepreneurialism, I’d…proven myself unfit!

Had fallen off.

Was washed.

But no.

Fuck that.

What Sheila was saying was: Darwinism didn’t apply to individuals.

It wasn’t that only the strongest man, the most fertile woman, survived.

Nah.

Groups had to survive.

This meant a group was strongest when each contingent member played their part.

The fact that everyone I encountered around the city—students at UPenn, ex bae’s PhD cohorts, woke kids in West—the fact they weren’t about That Art Life like I was didn’t mean shit.

Didn’t mean anything bad.

Not for them; nor for me.

It just meant they were fulfilling their role; and I, mine.

Someone had to make the art; others, to study medicine; and, still others, to figure out what to protest.

I didn’t say any of this.

That that take made me feel so much better about how bad ex bae had made me feel.

Bc ex bae was on a roll.

Going in about this and that and everything she’d been going through.

With confidence she lacked before.

Or maybe she didn’t.

Maybe I was just unable to hear it, over my neediness.

My rambling.

My need, like she spat at me during one of our last fights, to be blown by everyone. To only fuck with those who, literally or symbolically, blew me.

I could barely see ex bae’s features how dark it had gotten at the dog park on 33rd and Powelton we’d walked to.

Lil pup kept digging into this hole with a construction cone in the middle.

Like that was gonna discourage dogs from digging.

Every time we tried to stop him, he sprinted around our reach and approached from a new angle.

Honestly didn’t see what the problem was.

Dig away!

But the owner of another pup lil pup befriended kept getting all worked up when her dog joined in on the digging.

And join he did!

Once lil pup showed befriended pup how the digging was done, the box was opened.

Neither could stop themselves!

So she re-collared him.

Right when she sensed I was about to dive into the House of Resentment, ex bae proposed we walk.

“Better get this pup home. Shall we?”

I wasn’t tryna head home.

I wasn’t done walking.

But I’d do whatever was necessary.

Fetch any and all bones.

To accommodate a face-sit.

To earn myself that treat.

“Yes, let’s,” I said, cheerful.

A problem before was the pressure I implicitly put on her, when asking about where she was at idea-wise.

But this time, I didn’t ask.

And was pleased/awed by how/that she came to it on her own.

Not there yet but the big diss was around the corner.

She was considering writing about Morrison Swift.

Morrison Swift was a canonically overlooked anarchist from the early 20th century.

Real Renaissance man.