Conspicuously Invisibile

It was on the second floor in the far northeastern corner of Powell’s City of Books. Before they remodeled, a varnished plywood bench nestled into the corner. On clear cold winter mornings the sunlight would warm you as it highlighted the panoramic view. And on rare summer evenings the setting sun tinted the landscape hues of pink and red.
I knew reading the books without buying them was a type of theft and security at Powell’s would often eye me, as if to say, “We know your not a real customer.”
I was one of the dispossessed, homeless, conspicuous by my invisibility. I went there to read and escape the condemnation I transcribed onto the faces of people as they passed me.
I would slip into the Ann Hughes coffee shop to fill my commuter cup with hot water to which I added tea bags or cocoa I had brought with me. While sitting in the corner I would sneak sips and nibble on expired baked goods handed out by the mission earlier in the morning.
Some days I would camp in that corner for up to 12 hours. Digesting an entire book in one setting. If you closed your eyes, or were caught eating, security was right there asking you to leave. They tended to hover around anyone looking impoverished. I never stole a book from the store and when I could afford it, I would buy a used paperback, selling it back when I had finished reading it.
Eventually security saw me as less of a threat and would even greet me as they walked by.
Years later a chapbook I wrote, “Being Simple Comes With Complications” sits in the small press section, pages curled from browsers skimming through it, and a few copies have even sold. Somehow this completes a cycle.