by Graham

Created on: April 05, 2007   Last Updated: May 14, 2007

I walked that night through the city of Naples. The dusty city burned with light from the street lamps. They looked down watching all the people pass by and those who didn't. The ones who sat or rather laid down beside them to make the sidewalk their bed. They curled up next to lifeless buildings and cold metal street lamps for comfort. As if these concrete maidens acted as some type of twisted mother to them. They peddled for money screaming with their cups hoping for alms and looking for love in the most unresponsive places.

Moving on through the night I passed mountains of garbage placed sporadically on the side walk. They had to trash cans here. No where to displace the refuse so the home for the homeless acted as the bins. The pillars of trash held up the city like a make shift temple. To move them would be disastrous. Strangely enough as dirty as this city was there was a peculiar charm to it. Something that stuck with me that the Holy city of Rome couldn't provide with all its ancient, pompous beauty and organization of do's and don'ts that rule from on top of St. Peter's grave.

I made my way back to the hotel room and passed a man who lifted his shirt exposing and enormous purple bruise. He didn't lift his shirt to tend to it, but only to drive a syringe deep inside his torso. A quick fix of compromised self worth.

I had finally returned to my box of a room and walked out onto the balcony over looking my dusty city. Scanning, my eyes met an exchange in the square below. A young woman approached a car window. I suspect she was a prostitute. She brought herself to the window that the pleasure of another would pay the bills even if it rotted her away from the inside. To serve man she spilled herself out all over the car. To please

But this city. A place that held strangely something closer to heaven than the high ceilings of the Sistine chapel.

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