Thirteen years ago - it was another century - I happened into a men's room in an unfamiliar building at the University of Texas at Austin. I was walking across campus &, you know, had to use the facilities, like you do, & wandered into the nearest building.
It was a nice old restroom, dating - like the building - from the early 1960s. The building was mostly deserted - it was afternoon, it was summer, there were no classes - so I had the place to myself, which is how I prefer it anyway.
I used to carry a notebook with me to write stuff down, thoughts & ideas, impressions, even (god help me) poetry & prose. But I wasn't going to be composing on the crapper - I just needed to "do my business" & get out of there.
I am glad I had the notebook, though, because there was a sort-of haiku on the wall, & commentary, which delighted me so that I had to write it down.
Someone wrote:
"No matter how beautiful she is
Someone, somewhere
Is sick of her shit."
Underneath, a different person wrote:
"We should have such worries, you and i."
That building - & therefore that little bit of bathroom poesy - no longer exists. There's another building in its place, & I remember thinking about the graffiti when I watched workers tear the building down a few years later.
Over time workers built something new there, & I walked past it often as I walked around campus, but for the life of me I can't think of what that new edifice looks like.
But I can see the scrawled words of wisdom - & the pithy response - on the back of a men's room's stall's door as clear as day.
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