No Sex God of Art

I used to think I’d someday grow up to be a famous artist. Some loft dwelling, wine swilling, crazy haired fucker. All the ladies would swoon over my drug addled body in the Leibowitz photo spreads. Torn white tee shirts and tight black jeans. My work, whatever it may have been, would sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars. I would be praised as a mad genius, a man outside of time, and I would die before thirty, smiling, drinking, and fucking, only to be lost amongst the great unfortunate mass of the beautiful dead.

Now, grown well past my prime, I leave shoes by the road. A pair of sneakers here, some Sunday best there. I buy them from my local Salvation Army for a few dollars, and every couple of weeks, I bring them out to some road, busy or not, and set them down. The cars drive by, and maybe they don’t notice, but, maybe they do. Maybe someone drives by, and thinks to themselves “Huh, I wonder why those shoes are there. They seem like a perfectly good pair.” And they would speculate a few scenarios, car accident, open gym bag misplacement, and then move along with their day, completely forgetting the shoes, and by association, me.

I think it’s my life’s work. My great art. My masterpiece. I have no idea what it means, other than possibly a simple leak of madness from my aging, and ever tired brain. Really, what other explanation could there be? My face sags. My stomach hangs over my pants and bulges against my shirts. I am no sex god of art. I am a lost hope. I am garbage in the street, perhaps once valuable, now crumpled and filthy.

So, I leave my marks. As small and imperceptible as they may be, at least I can drive past them on my way to work and say quietly to myself, “that was me.” At least someone knows who I am.

At least I can still see me.