Although my shit was, wasn’t the next step to keep it 100 about how we, as Americans, were the products of these northern, father-god-type impulses, and so own up to that; there was an inevitable, Pandora’s box element to these evolutionary shifts; and so, wasn’t it the move to, rather than nostalgically try to re-create the time before someone figured out how to ride a horse, or lay claim to and cultivate land, to instead use the power these developments grant, but ethically?

To challenge ourselves to wield that power empathically, with integrity, with the care that much responsibility entailed?

Was this not the most urgent task?

With the insinuation of course being that I was one of the chosen ones doing that difficult work. Of applying the integrity of the old, matriarchal ways to this savage, patriarchal new world.

I was a modern-day hunter, riding my horse-bike around, delivering food to these basic fucks unable not only to make it themselves but even pick it up; hunting for food—foraging for nuts—at night, when safe from emotional predators; loving all my baes equally, according to the non-ownership-based polyamory of matriarchal yore.

Only—my mfkn ankles were so swollen I couldn’t bike anymore; and, on my way back from Wawa to pack final things before hitting that 5 a.m. flight—while having these very revelations—I chomped tf out of a honey roasted pecan and cracked my left molar in half.

•

Back at the spot, roomie bae was in the living room, in her nighties. Sweeping.

At this time?

It was almost 1 a.m.

She stopped abruptly when she saw me.

“Oh,” she said. “Thought you left already!”

“Flight’s at five,” I said, massaging my cheek.

I looked at the pile of debris she’d accumulated.

“Oh jeez,” I said. “I’m sorry. Here, lemme—” I took the broom from her and swept up the rest of my skin. Dumped it into the trash can.

I was so embarrassed, and she could tell, so she started to apologize. But I told her not to. It wasn’t on her to feel bad—if I had a roomie who was spraying out skin like that everywhere, I’d be tryna clean it up too.

“It was just getting on my socks!” she said. “Didn’t mean to be weird about it.”

Roomie bae asked how I was getting to the airport.

I told her I was gonna walk to 30th Street—about a mile and a half.

“With all your bags? Is the airport train even running at this time?”

“Shoot, I think…There was an exclamation advisory on the map, had me sorta worried.”

“What about Uber?” she said.

“You know I don’t fuck with Uber,” I said. “I don’t even have the app.”

I was a walker / horse rider. I didn’t fuck with the luxuries my overprivileged, fkng CLUELESSY HYPOCRITICAL twentysomething peers did.