Plaza Monkey
By Ben Morgan


Everyone is around me with muted faces.
I’m sitting in a chair at a table like an ape.
I took public transportation and now I’m in Times Square.
I pull out a pack of cigarettes, and then an individual one.
I cannot trust my drunken self to not buy cigarettes.
Tensions are high ‘in the band.’
Everybody has their own ideas about where they think ‘the band’ should go, and I kind of just sit there. Choosing to not choose or something. They have good ideas, and I can work with good ideas. I cannot, however, work alone.
I see a girl walking by a donut shop. She is pretty.
I want to see her every day.
I take out my book of poems and I draw her. Crudely.
Walking.

The square never changes, and I find that strange, because I am always an entirely different person.
Sometimes, people appear static as if they were fiction, but I’m always changing.
This seems strange to me.
There is a woman buying shoes. I know this because I watched her walk into a shoe store, alone.
I hope she has money and buys shoes, because she looked like she had money to buy shoes.
The rhythm is off, I think.
There is a deep sound inside my brain.
Booming from deep and coming out.
I think, yes, I see the girl walking by the donut shop.
She seems scripted and it is nice.

( )

I am alone.
I cannot wait to meet the girl; I am going to call out to her hair.
I’ll say “hey, hair,” and she will love me.
This is not too hopeful, I think.
I see a man walking a dog and I watch him.
He does not see me. I cannot wait to meet the girl.
I take a cigarette out from behind my ear, and light it. I am drunk right now, so it is okay.
There is no end to the paradigm of violent human behavior.
Everyone will always be belligerent in at least one or more ways, and some only act timid out of fear of that fact.

( )

I don’t see the girl anywhere.
This makes me upset.
There is a woman buying shoes.
I’m going to steal her.
I see her leave and want I follow her.
This might make me happy, I think.
Because tensions are high.
‘In the band.’

( )

There is a man ordering food from McDonalds.
He does not look overweight but I feel he will be overweight soon.
He looks young. Fresh. Unable to see how the world slaps.
I don’t know about that either, really.
I can’t wait to see the girl. She has blonde hair and it is short. It curls around her ears in little bangs.
I like little bangs.
There is a woman buying shoes.
I see the girl walking by the donut shop and I draw her then the donut shop.
I forgot what I was going to say.
This happens sometimes.
There is a fire truck, and it is on while moving.
I see three children. This makes me happy.
Children make me happy when I see them.
I forgot what I was thinking.

( )

I am smoking my last cigarette.
It always feels good and bad to smoke your last cigarette.
Feeling like wasting the moon.
The shoe store is having a sale.
I walk into the shoe store and I see women buying shoes. I don’t have money for shoes or women.
This is my problem, I think.
Like, I don’t know really.
This is how I feel.
I see the girl walking by the donut shop.
She has convinced me to go and buy a donut.
Walking into the donut shop, but I have no money. I saddle up to the register.
There is nobody in the donut shop currently, other than him.
I threaten the man at the register because he is an asshole, and he calls the police. So I walk away.
This donut shop is not as good as the girl.

( )

I fell asleep today sitting in a shitty chair at a table in Times Square.
I was up late drawing pictures of the donut shop.
Drew a lot of pictures of the donut shop.
I am angry, maybe with the donut shop.
One day, I am going to kill the man who works at the register in the donut shop.
I can feel it.
There is a woman buying shoes.
I forgot what I was thinking.
I see the girl walking in front of the donut shop.
I forgot what I was going to say.


- - -
Ben Morgan is a person, and maybe real as well.