Medellin, Colombia, Encapsulated

Medellin, enchanted city, home of the silicon buttcheek, where no one remembers the natural light of stars and the sun has barely been named, where the Paisas wear their souls on their skin and old men sing sad songs in the streets selling guanabana juice by the cup, where notices in the park bathroom urge you to give transcendental meditation a chance and park attendants in decorative safari hats remind you “no shoes!” while rogue bastard geese ambush afternoon picnics and iguanas look on grinning, where laughter thunders and thunder laughs and everybody remembers your name, where no one ever has change for 50 mil, no more than $23 dollars, so you buy juice on the corner, an arepa down the street, quesito in the market, all part of a strange ritual shuffle necessary to divide the great bill, where buses leave a lump of black exhaust wherever they go and stoplights are more of a suggestion, where the metro cuts across the city like something from the future and heartbroken youths wander the nights street-singing Spanish songs of love, where raisin-faced women push carts of coffee and gum and the history of the world transpires every hour to a backdrop of horns honking, globular synthetic breasts on the boulevard, and the smell of cornmeal frying.