I have a clear memory of the first time I was stolen from.

After the immediate surprise receded, my first emotion was neither resentment nor fury nor rage. It was sadness.

I stared at the place where the $2,700 mountain bike was once locked. There was nothing there. Disbelief. I had purchased the bike a week prior on stressful hours of employee discount for $1,500. My precious, sleek baby was gone! The nicest thing I've ever owned! Poof. And there was no other way to put it: I was sad.

Yes, I was upset about the money, the fact that the bike was a gift from my first "foster family," the notion that I wouldn't be able to ride for a while, and the reality that my stupidity (or was it idealism?) had stopped me from using a steel U-lock. Yes, I was upset about these things, but I was sad about something else.

I was sad because I imagined a drug addicted street dweller desperate for drug money cutting the lock. Shaking hands. The events in the chronicles of their life... They could cut a lock and take someone else’s sacred property.

I thought of people shooting up heroin in their veins and kids with bright eyes put out too young. I thought of rotten teeth and addiction.

I thought of how homeless individuals would conglomerate on the street corner in front of 7/11 late at night in downtown Colorado Springs: a coming together of city ghosts under the cloak of darkness. It was in the night where they could see and be seen. No more passing strangers in polished shoes talking on cell phones and looking the other direction when passing the sad state of another. No more passing lives to remind them of the ghostly condition that can be achieved in flesh.

I thought of handing out sandwiches with a friend’s little brother to the homeless in front of 7/11 at 1:00 am a week prior.

I thought of my friend’s little brother asking an old man with no teeth to dance with him on the street corner of 7/11, at 1:05 am, and the old man responding, “Dude! What kind of drugs are you on, and where can I get them!?” and my friend’s little brother responding, “None. I’m high on life!” I remember us all laughing, a conglomerate in the night harboring stories of pain, oppression, idealism, secrets, hardships, resentment, realism, forgiveness, riches, privilege.

I thought of a police officer slowing his car as he passed the 7/11 at 1:10 am. Was he worried for us? I can't be sure.

Staring at the vacant place where my bike once sat, I thought, "What if one of those homeless people I gave sandwiches to–Oh my oh-so-holy-philanthropic-giving self!–stole my bike?”

Shallow cognition. What does it matter who stole it? It could be anyone, a rich “trust-fund-baby” even, who stole my bike, and I am just as sad for the thief in all versions.

I thought how, at the end of the day, irrespective of where I've come from or where they’ve come from, I am a privileged college student and “the other,” “the enemy,” is someone who stole a bike. If you let that sink in for a moment, truly sink in, that says a lot.

I thought of my mom, I thought of where I come from. I thought of all the love and all the loss. I thought of my heroine addict uncle moving in at seven because he was going to die if he didn't have our support. I thought of my mom telling him to just “think like a tree frog,” because treefrogs never think too heavy of thoughts.

I thought of my uncle becoming like a dad to me, still the kindest person I have ever known. I thought of how years later my mom had told me he had stolen many things from many people for drug money. I thought of my toppled idol. I thought of how people are never all good or all bad. I thought of his splattered brains, because he couldn't think like a tree frog. I thought of my mom becoming an alcoholic to numb the pain of failing to save another. I thought of her in a coma, failing to follow him into the darkness. I thought of her contracting a dissease of the mind, or perhaps it was always there... lurking. I thought of her telling me, with sad drunken eyes before I left for a plane to somewhere new, "You've always been kind." I thought of knowing she was wrong but wanting to prove her right. I thought of moving to Colorado at 15 with no family, scared. I thought of being taken in by kind hands in Carbondale, Colorado. I thought of how I have written my way into my version of success. And I thought of how incredibly much I love my mom, despite everything, and wish for her happiness.

So this is why when I saw a vacant place where my bike once was, I thought of mental illness and addiction. How could I not? I thought of the thief's story, wondered what it could be, and I knew it was not as fortunate as mine, because at the end of the day, irrespective of what I’ve seen and who I miss and where I lack, I am a privileged college student, and “the other” is someone who stole a bike. If you let that sink in, it says a lot.

I was sad, because the world can be cruel and unforgiving, but I never want to be like that.

They can have my bike, but they can't have my spirit. I still believe the wolf can lie down with the lamb.

I am a privileged college student, it is just a bike, and there is not an “enemy” or an “other” who stole from me but a different version of my own self who stole. I cannot cut out the thief from my own soul because at one point in childhood, I’m sure the thief and I were no different. We split when society told us to, and we have been split ever since. Wolf and lamb. So, at the end of the day, I prayed for the thief in us all.

And I forgive.

But perhaps this is easy for me to say because, as I revise this piece, I am full again. I have no primal urge to attack, for I have repurchased the same bike. But, if you have not already come to realize, this is not a piece about a bike at all. It’s a story about people.

Tell me, do you beaten and broken, you shattered and resentful, you wounded and lost, you victorious and relentless, you savage and powerful, you toxic and polluting, you content and wise,

believe the wolf can lie with the lamb?

Do you believe that we can look in the mirror and see ourselves for what we truly are, fragile flesh

alike.

Tell me, what part of your story has not felt

Love and loss?

I believe that the sun will rise from the charcoal ashes, and a broken world will, at last, breathe in dawn out from darkness. And I forgive the faults in you that are thus the faults in me too.

God, if you exist,

give the thief, the hungry, the craving strength and happiness and let them feel my love

and let them feel the love of the world,

the love in the world that resides in beautiful things

as simple as

treefrogs.

And deliver them their own

sacred property

to their sacred flesh of ours.

Feel free to comment an experience you have had with someone ideologically different from you.

Drawings of enemies or unlike entities coming together

Inspired by the bike thief

by Annemarie Lewis

Contact if interested in prints,

Much love.