ran away from home

The man was sitting alone in his apartment. His longtime girlfriend moved out a few days earlier. He had not called off work because this was the only thing could get him out of bed and into his shoes and out on the sidewalk and down the subway stairs feeling the hot breath of the city and wondering if it was god. He had long since stopped feeling sorry for himself and had just finished off the urge to push her into a train for giving up. Now he had the moment of insanity to play with, a real opportunity to change everything, and he laughed at the horror of love and loss as he cut himself shaving with too much pressure on the razor scraping his beard through the soap suds, having run out of shaving cream and too lost in his pain to remember to stop at the pharmacy after work; rather than rip a corner of cotton to stick to the wound he just let it bleed and sat alone in his apartment, careless of the time. Today he would close his bank account just to feel a couple hundred twenties in his hands. Today he would close down his social media accounts and send his cell phone to his unemployed son. Today he would not go to work because what he needed to do for himself today was more important than work, though he could not say how or why. Today he was insane and therefore not in any need of rustling up a tired old defense. Today he would go to Central Park and walk around it as many times as he needed, and meet the perfect strangers, and walk through its midsection, and listen to the breeze in the multitude of deciduous trees loving him by shaking all their leaves. Today he would appreciate the living city, and run his eyes up and down her silver and charcoal straight edge streets, and wistfully smile through his tears, giving lollipops to the vagrant kids who also ran away from home.