They
stole my bike (the motherfuckers);
One week in the city and I come back,
One week in the city and I come back,
one
afternoon,
of
my Carrera Crossfire
was
a snipped cable,
lying
dead on the ground
like
a sliced snake,
And the faint shadow
And the faint shadow
of
the bike’s essence;
Two
ghostly wheels, an imaginary frame and
a carrier
that was not really there.
They
stole my bike (the motherfuckers);
My
ass had spent hours
on
that saddle,
moulding
it to my shape.
In
the pannier on the side
I had
had my winter gloves,
a half
bottle of water,
a
book token
that
still had €7 on it.
Something
tells me that
the
gurriers that took it,
would
not be using the token.
They
stole my bike (the motherfuckers);
after
six months of hardly
walking
anywhere,
I now
have to measure distances
in
half hours, not
small
multiples of five minutes.
I
move my legs and wonder why
it
takes so long to get places,
why
I can no longer coast down hills
or
use sixth gear
or
weave in and out of traffic.
I am
reminded of
how
much walking sucks.
They
stole my bike (the motherfuckers);
They
are now in possession of all
of
the strange vocabulary of
the
bicycle world;
My
spokes, saddle, mudguards,
gear
cables, handlebars,
brake
pads, USB lights,
bicycle
bell, twenty one inch frame,
black,
plastic pannier.
They
now own these words
and
the things attached,
while
I am left with
an
orphan helmet,
and
a lock attached to nothing.
They
stole my bike, (the motherfuckers);
As
if it was theirs to take,
as
if private property was an illusion;
a bourgeois
concept to keep
the
working class down.
It
may have been an
ideological
act,
a redistribution
of wealth,
socialism
in practice.
Or
maybe they were just
scumbags.
They
stole my bike (the motherfuckers);
In
the station, the guard said that
I had
no hope of seeing it again,
that
I should accept that it was gone.
I
nodded, resigned,
but
felt like asking,
why
the forces of law and order
were
so powerless
in
the face of a teenage skanger
with
a wire cutters.
“Shouldn’t
there be a sting operation”,
I
wanted to know,
swat
teams, special forces,
The
Coast Guard, the Garda
helicopter.
Where were
the
emergency response team,
the
Army, the sub-aqua unit?
“Get
your best men on the case,”
I
wanted to demand,
“don’t
you realize
that
they stole my goddamn bike?”
They
stole my bike, (the motherfuckers);
They stole it, and they stole it good.