Baltimore, you smell funny.
That lightly diluted chemical that fills your Inner Harbor is not water and it hasn’t been for a very long time.
It sinks my floating dinghy line and smells of…
I (James) just sighed as if I was trying to pay attention to another non-fight scene in West World.
Oh Baltimore I love you but you smell funny goddamnit and I can’t define it!
Oh, there’s some sulfur in there, sure, and maybe a little condensed anger mixed with urea and gasoline…but, there’s also a hint of brilliance augmented by a powerfully large dose of the oxide twins, Carbon-Di and brother Mon. I believe there’s a smidgen of plastacine interwoven with a seemingly non-stop supply of the worlds largest floating condom species. But that still doesn’t quite define that smell.
Baltimore, I know you, I lived with you for a hell of a long time, for me, and I think you’re pretty awesome most of the time. I made some money, some friends, some knowledge and some skills in your urban-sprawl but that funk, that smell, that putrid waft of concoctions-unknown, is what I ran away from, and that shit, emanates from your Inner-Harbor… maybe ‘funny’ isn’t the word I’m looking for here.
That poor sad sickly soup that is so not funny somehow remains your life’s blood all the while showing us the unimaginable tenacity of life with the simple act of a tiny leaping fish.
Every time we weigh anchor your harbor blows forth gifts, or hints rather of your unique odoriferous contributions to our environment and never fails to inspire us to run, once again.
…Poor dear Baltimore
There’s always the plastic bread-bags and the wad of hook-riddled fishing line dripping from the oily bottom muck but every once in a while a tiny gang of krill will burst forth from a discarded milk jug or a rusty can of beans reminding me that we really can’t kill everything in the world…unless, of course, we try.
Even though we always run, we always return with hope that someday life will win again in your life’s blood and your smell won’t be such a complicated riddle.
Till then, ew!