Crazy

Don't call me crazy.

I've studied crazy as it gimped through Grand Central Station wearing one broken heel and one flip flop in the dead of winter, pulling all its belongings behind it on a sheet of indeterminable color, gesturing wildly and spinning a tale only it could comprehend. 

Don't call me crazy.

I've looked crazy in the eye on a Paris subway platform as it held itself on full display, slinging masturbatory glee while screaming about what it wanted, needed, me to do to it, raining smut and spittle down on the tracks in a Romance language better served for poets and docents. 

Don't call me crazy.

I've sat with crazy on park benches, nodding at tales about how the world is ending, how Satan walks among us, how the pirate life is the noblest profession and how it was the most heralded rap superstar before Tupac and Biggie conspired to steal all its art. 

I offer up petty cash to crazy. I extend crazy some compassion. I feed crazy when it needs dinner. I sacrifice my time for crazy because crazy was a child once, too. But some days I give crazy a wide fucking berth depending on how many hairs stand up on the back of my neck when crazy runs me down, recalling my face and my typical cheerful consolation. 

I'm not naive. Crazy can be horrifying. 

I've helplessly watched crazy pummel someone's face at a level of depravity not seen up close before or since.

I've stayed laser focused on crazy as it slunk around a campus dive bar gauging the reachability of the drinks ordered by girls with the thinnest wrists and wobbliest limbs.

I've primitively danced with crazy at an outdoor festival before it changed into a hobbit, tore into my unsuspecting shoulder with its teeth, and shambled off into the crowd, shrieking with glee.

I've been in touch with and around crazy all my life. 

It is not me. 

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