One Hail Mary, Then Let's Go Out

before, we would sit on the train together and pretend to be in love - just for the tourists. your arm around me. my hand on your thigh. i'd tell a story to the tourist and you'd stare passionately at me. you'd tell a story to the tourist and i'd stare admiringly at you, a quick look back to the tourist, just checking in, right back to your lips. then you would say your goodbyes and depart at your stop. me and the tourist left to rear the conversation.

as the train leaves your stop the tourist addresses me. filled with envy and anguish as he gropes through two questions. could two people be more in love? can i ever find that?
the tourist slowly comes back from that place we always sent them. the bright pasture filled with life. you bounce and the bumblebees don't scare you. and the river will never stop running, and the trees will always be in bloom.
the tourist was so far off after bearing witness to a pure love that flourishes between us.

the tourist looks back at me and makes a statement of fact: "you and your boyfriend really love each other"
i correct him on our circumstances. i tell him of our wild love for one another, but remind him that we're still young. i assure the tourist i'm in love with you, and i'm almost sure you feel exactly the same way. i tell how our unfortunate dilemma roots from the sole truth to our love. we both know that once we get together there would be nobody else after. i explained gingerly to the tourist that neither of us are ready for that sort of commitment quite yet.

at the moment we preferred to stage our love on the train. we needed to remind people of that young unconditional love. a real life memo reminding folks that this rare and untamable beast may be endangered, but it's not extinct. only hard to sustain. and while it might put on a show, it rarely makes a curtain call, and never delivers an encore.

They Reminded Me Of Gma & Gpa

the world is a wonderful place. it's mid-november and the sun is still warm.

the diversity within mankind must make mother nature proud. for when i got on the train today i sat across from a man and woman and before i could even sit down i heard him say "i shoulda worn a shirt and tie," she shot back "we're going to get drugs." my interest peaked and i asked them what kind of drugs (although i had a pretty good idea), when they told me heroin i told them i figured. a glimpse into the next twenty minutes, pre-transfer, would include her talking about how all her "blades" got taken away, how his ex-wife is dead (the big C), her ex-husband calls her for sex, and the quote "they shouldn't call it coke, they should just call it more!"

when i transferred at Babylon i made sure to avoid them, not out of discontent, but rather because i had some reading to do.

now across from me is an elderly lady and as i'm reading my text she says "excuse me dear can you open this", she reaches out and hands me a Poland Spring water bottle and adds "bad wrist." i open it with ease and give it back to her, she says thanks.

and then i'm prompted to write this. because happiness takes the same form in all types of individuals. can you recognize it?

Nothing Like What's Next To Me

four years of college and i don't know what i want to do. i don't know. i'd pump cesspools if it made me happy, but i don't think jobs can make anyone happy. not completely anyway, momentarily more likely. so i'm stuck, sort of like a stick in the mud, but, i'm not unhappy - maybe a bit sad, but i always find it has little to do with me and everything to do with the world around me.

watch the news.

read the paper.

listen to the radio.

absorb it all, reconsider.

and so i make graffiti on the train because creativity makes me happy.

i like to read and write and watch other people,

pay me for it?

i like to go fishing. not that i'm "serious" about it. i don't go out there with the right bait, rod, or casting technique, but there's something about feeling that life on the other line. knowing that even when you can't see it life is out there - alive! just waiting to feast and be caught.

and i'm a student, but nothing like the one sitting by me on the train. the difference is she has focus and a diet cherry coke. all i have is heart and a Natural Ice. i'm riding this train, not with the intention of moving forward, but with the intention of suspension. i'm dying for distractions from my text. she's reading "Art in Theory 1900-2000". and i find it amazing how they cover 10o years of art in 500 pages. at the very least us accountants know we're full of shit, an invention. art however is not an invention, it's a fruit of being and how i die to eat more than 500 pages.

without a dream there's not much to follow.

i'm sure it's very informative, but heck that's what other things are for. a book describing art almost feels like a disgrace to art. other peoples descriptions and opinions take away from your own.

maybe i'm drunk, no

i am.

8/28/10

on my train home from my first day of class i spotted this charming old man, skinny as could be, alone, bouquet of flowers in hand. he was so skinny through his clothes you could see his bones, the shirt was just hanging on him. he was so fragile and when i got a closer look at the flowers they looked as sad as him, mostly baby breath. i wondered if he found them pretty or if it's all he could afford. when i first started speculating where he was going i thought a girlfriends or maybe a granddaughters graduation party. then it slowly occurred to me what if it was a grave he was headed to.

his wifes 10 year death anniversary. somebody what - 6 feet under the ground - buried, being visited by probably one of the few souls left who even cares. her body wasting away only slightly less than his own. he briefly wishes doctor assisted suicide was legal, but then he hears her voice, all those years ago, while laying on her death bed. she said she'd be waiting for him. the scenes outside passing so fast he considers the terms of the vow - would she still be waiting after this long? after all he had waited for her, still bound to she who no longer existed in a tangible form. he thought it would be insulting to their marriage to stray even inches.

upstairs she was scrambling to make arrangements for their reunion, knowing much better than him the wait was almost over.

he got off at jamaica where we made eye contact, but his face was now expressionless.

My Eyes Gaze Out The Train

i see the world in shapes and sizes

but not to anchor any prizes

I'll Wait For Your Call Next Winter

i'm watching some crap tv show and i'm waiting for you, to do what i don't know. but here i am alone, well not exactly, but you know. the type of alone that keeps you hesitating when maybe you should be rejoicing in happiness. the kind that expires during the day but catches up with you at night. it was right there waiting, it didn't move.

and sitting here with an empty bottle of wine that isn't mine, characters in a match i've yet to win. when i remember how wrong i've been. its just there was this time i packed my wine in a dollar arizona iced tea can to catch the train and a guy told me he knew something was funny. you could easily see the dark red wine caught atop the lid. i felt like a bum with baggage then who wasn't at all funny, and i still do now. yet i drunkenly ruminated with him over everything you did, and we decided it was all venial - just wish you felt the same. you could let go of the careless moments i wasn't engaged to all the good everyone thought i was.

back at home i laugh and stare up because truthfully i can't get over anything, and then no feeling comes over me, but everyone gets over me.
wish i could get it.

Untitled

regret is the word that fosters my soul
hope beyond a fence made of bones
lost in the angles of your smile
high off the carpentry of your body

once in awhile i believe this trip
was bound to derail at first slip

the liquid mass has turned to stone
never again to possibly return
so show me all the cards you hold
as i deflate as you steadily swell
with the tricks still up your sleeve
and all that's left for comfort
are your pathetic prophecies

I Think I Can

i feel like flash flooding, whatever that means. i feel like an organ being rejected by a body. when i ran up the stairs today, out of penn station, i wanted to keep on running. the deliberate and passionless nature of school, the tube, pals, drunk, sleep, driving, eat, single ladies dance, work, oil changes, bumming cigarette, and wasteful spending have trapped me. i feel like that parachute exercise in early education gym class, it's slowly coming over me, and when it finally does i can't get out. what i need to do is start a fire under that parachute to lift it up off of me, that way i can quickly run out.

this woman i watch on the train always wore black, and today she threw me a curve ball and showed up in peddle pushers (the nerve), a white blouse, and a light green blazer. spring is too early, i'm not ready for it. i crave the weather excuse for not leaving the house, now it's just another thing working against me. between me and you, i almost cried. i can't put my finger on exactly why but it's something between the proof she wore that spring is here with her on board and the static nature of myself.

maybe someone could read me The Little Engine That Could
but then i remember what shel silverstein said so poetically "If the track is tough and the hill is rough, THINKING you can just ain't enough!"

so i need a match, and a sack to place the pieces i'm picking up.

Held Without Bail

today on the train something funny happened, in the sense that it was unexpected. there are two people who always get on together at wyandanch, one male and one female, who always sit together. but today when they got on she took a seat up front by the doors, and he sat next to me - on the inside (i always take an outside seat because i feel trapped on the inside, and okay yeah it discourages people from sitting next to me). so there was this awkward moment where he was putting his stuff above my seat in the overhead carrier, but i still didn't get that he wanted to sit next to me, and my headphones were on, so he had to mouth and gesture for me to get up to allow him access to the inner seat. most people are reluctant to take a seat that places them in the situation of having to communicate with another passenger, and this is why even though i felt him wanting the seat i didn't act on that feeling. anyway, when he sat next to me i felt at peace, as if we were together, in the same boat.

i imagined her telling him that she didn't love him anymore, but him behind her on the train, like he had always been behind her. him telling himself that she'll come around. we were both dressed in all black from head to toe, except my red hat - his was black, and his skin was black too and i thought his insides to be darker than mine because of the wear from his age. i thought that if i wanted i could rest my head upon his shoulder and that would be fine with him. not that i would ever attempt such a thing (not to say that i didn't want to). but if i needed to i felt comfort in believing that i could. so i sat and read Swift, and he sat with his eyes closed, and i felt like we shared more than just the commute.

It's Optimum, Or It's Not

i was on the train, and i always take a look at the poster advertisements. probably because most are for exotic vacations and airline tickets, and at 6am on the way to school nothing seems more desirable. props to the marketing executives responsible for the placement of such ads. anyway i was taking a specific look at one ad with christina applegate (i think and i wanna say i'm pretty sure, definitely in the 85%-95% range) on it with the promise of receiving not one but SEVEN lifetime channels if you make the switch from Optimum iO to Verizon FiOs.

so my first thought is, how the heck can "they*" get enough tv, movie, biopics (a lifetime signature move), whatever to fill 7 channels and all about women in danger and broken homes and teenagers impregnated by their rapists. how many repeats of army wives can one watch? well i thought at least one must be in spanish, but still 6 lifetimes. damn.

but my second thought was what a beautiful symbol for america. because we don't want one lifetime, no. we want seven, or even eight i mean would be nice, right?

*still no clue yet as to who "they" are.

JUST AS A SIDE NOTE: isn't it weird how you drop most things and they just kinda hit the ground with one sudden and instantaneous thud and then it's all over. but sometimes you can drop a bowl and it just continues to make that terrible noise as it wobbles across the floor in a dreidel like fashion until you either pick it up and stop it yourself, or the entire thing just plays out and gravity and friction put it to rest. it's just funny to me because its the one thing you drop and kinda have to like immediately cater to it or else you hear that sound.