South Side Soothsayers

" I'm a bum," he said on a hazy evening. Standing on the corner of East Carson Street, South Side of Pittsburgh. " Everyone has the potential for genius!" His words echo of the cracked conglomerate of sidewalks bearing the daily burden of many passing, shopper's unaware steps. " We are all born with the same number of brain cells, little lady." Was he telling me that genius is bred within each and not created? "Intelligence and brilliance burdens the streets!" Decaying brown leather shoes step on the ashes dust from the menthol light he had bummed from me. " Addiction, my dear, is all in the mind. I paid five dollars for a cigarette once," He laughs while cradling the nicotine filled column between his heavy aged fingers. " I don't need this anymore than you do, anymore than anyone needs anything." Tossing the butt into the ominous slits of the pitched sewer grate and then solemnly strolled away stating, " Don't you know it's all in the mind, my dear, all in the mind."