Sometimes dreams, lucid between memories slip through into the real world
Making you further question your sanity
Seamlessly melding with reality
Where bullets rain faster than smiles
And fake concern stretches around the syllables of newscasters’ grins
The train tilts along a sharp curve—
And I forget what I’ve been considering so closely,
Music blasts through plastic coated wires
And I people watch
As we speed by underground
Time illuminated in red, close to midnight
We’re stumbling as we’re rumbling along tracks
We hastily patch as they fall to pieces weekend over weekend
And we’re still impatient
So here we are, glitching out as train after train speeds by
I stand with feet planted on a train filled with people
Each with their own stories and challenges
Ones that will carry from this night to this new morning
And can’t be shrugged off as April Fools jokes
Making their way home, or making their way to something
As I am
A family of four sits down in a row on the train at 12.00am
Heading deeper into Brooklyn, a mother and two daughters,
One with her mother’s hairstyle
And the other rocking a mini version of her mother’s pink pants
A child sits in a stroller with a thin clear plastic covering draped over him
Small hands pressing against plastic
Eyes wide and very awake
His family throws bang snaps at each other and the floor
Mini fireworks popping as they make contact
The entire train car tries to brace for each pop, but jerks minutely every time one goes off
Here is childish glee they grit their teeth against
Perhaps it’s too much happiness they haven’t been invited into, in too small a space
Perhaps it’s too late, or too early for them
A man in a silver puffy jacket patches the cotton material
Back into the lining of his coat with clear packaging tape
Methodically ripping pieces which sharp white teeth
I’m happy to see him mending the sleeve
Instead of chucking the entire jacket aside as impossible to fix, as most people do
Thinking it’s too much effort
When they can more easily trek to the nearest Uniqlo
Grabbing up another jacket as quickly as they can swipe their credit card
A temporary session of retail therapy
It’s 12.05am
And the doors slide open
Some of us jump off
Dancing into whatever adventures the morning may hold