Why I Walk Around Listening To Patti Smith In The Loop

(Listen: Patti Smith Gloria)

Why I walk around listening to Patti Smith in the loop.

Today, walking around downtown Chicago, I'm surrounded by cement reminders of my size in the universe.

I am a small, broke woman wandering around meccas of consumerism allowing small pleasures to permeate my experience.

Going to a job I consider a job although I don't get paid; I am satisfied fetching coffee and organizing snack pack treats knowing that the three minutes that I spend dabbling in something that I enjoy makes it worth it. 
Okay, so here I am fishing in my pocket for headphones, I'm walking to the high end Chinese restaurant to pick up some high end lunch for the high end office that doesn't pay me. 

I nestle the earbuds into place, turn my branded music device to ROCK and I follow form. I walk around and past the normal people just barely fitting in but inside my head I am on stage at CBGB's gripping the microphone in my sweaty hands and screaming melodically.

I  bring the audience to it's knees.
I am the goddess of rock.
I am laying it down.
I'm gripping the mike as if I let go at that moment I would fall into something I could never find my way out of. 
I am swaying.
I am swinging my head back and forth, pointing at you and you and you there in the dark when I say "jesus died for somebody's sins..." then curl the smoky punch line around my smiling curling lips until you feel it to your core.
I am spelling rock out in six letters G-L-O-R-I-A!
Girls want me.

Boys want me. 
I want to fuck the audience.
I am a sultry awkward rock maven with an odd but fierce voice and painfully sweet lyrics.

I am this for 5 minutes and 56 seconds and the people passing me are unaware save for the occasional head bop on cue or finger drum on my right leg; a phantom guitar riff that only I can hear.

I feel a bead of sweat form inside the inside of my thigh and I know that it will end soon, I have 30 seconds to bring it on home and there I stand at the entrance of the high end Chinese restaurant. 
I push the revolving door like a heavy piece of playground equipment.
I have to make the decision to crescendo and collapse at the end of the stage or walk briskly up to the carryout counter and give the name for the order for Sweet and Sour chicken with brown rice and sauce on the side.

It is then that the question enters my mind: what would Patti Smith do? 

Would she continue to the end of the song or drag the earphones off and pay for the order?
I know the answer and I keep it runnin'.