What I Think The World Is Like For My Son

    My mama is standing next to me.

Close, but miles away.

There’s a walk now sign flashing and it’s making that loud BEEPing noise and people are walking past to cross the road perpendicular to this one the roads make a cross that’s two roads intersecting and making corners there’s white lines on the road they go across the roads and yellow lines too they go along the roads there’s very tall buildings all around the sound bounces off their shiny walls a baby is crying: hungry, in a buggy to my left her mother jiggles her buggy it makes a squeaking sound something needs oiling she needs a remedy I need to tell my mama that she needs a remedy a breeze, cold, which is rustling the leaves on that nearby tree there’s something in the rubbish bin next to the traffic light pole that stinks a man standing next to me is listening to music on his phone that I can hear the beat to a motorbike going past that makes a noise which is loud enough to drown out all the other noises it brings with it the smell of petrol fumes and a wave of warm humid air something is irritating me there’s something NOT QUITE RIGHT WHAT IS IT? I DON’T KNOW. DO SOMETHING, MAAAMAAAAAA, DO SOMETHING!!

All of a sudden my son is jiggling his legs, and flapping his hands, and making a god-awful sound, which alerts me, finally, that something is wrong, and then I do the only thing I can, I drop to my knees and I look at him for a clue and I see that he is pulling at his trousers and I look around at his back and I see that the tag of his underpants has been irritating him and has left a red patch, and I rip out the goddamned tag as fast as I can and I gather this boy into my arms to shelter him from all of these prickles of stimulation, all of these assaults on his quiet/notquiet mind.

And I breathe.

And I promise, again, to do better next time.