Subway Daydreams
With the return of warmer weather, I've been walking everywhere again.
I pull my scarf open to let its strands fly side-by-side the flyaways and let the wind brush my gaze upwards. I am reminded on every street corner of why I first fell into a deep relationship with New York City. I hesitate to call it love because it isn't always. It traverses the full spectrum of human emotion.
Sunlight bounces off shop windows, alley smog and shifty glances, shadows, screeching kids, drooping lids... Always some surprise. A collision or maybe something that strikes you with stark, uncomfortable meaning. There is no being comfortable here unless you want to avoid the living breathing beating pulse of the city, and if so, why bother being in the beating heart at all?
On the subway, I wonder what people do when they're alone. That woman with the poison colored pointed acrylic nails, she seems like she has spend a great deal of time maintaining those - does she enjoy the eyes which dart over her fingers during rush hour? Is that the most affection she receives in one day? Does anyone massage her back or kiss her shoulders? Her cap pulled down over her eyes, she does not return our glances; a modern day Cleopatra.
Kids standing up on the seats their parents pull them down, I always wonder why they do that? Why stop our future from questioning our past? What if we were not penalized for playing? Maybe then I could ask more strangers questions about themselves without feeling hot in the face.
Strangers in the streets fill my sheets with questions. I want to observe every detail, my eyes are hungry for their secrets, my fingers pulled towards the outlines of every interesting hairdo. I know we're not supposed to touch people's hair - some have gone so far as to call fascination with ethnic hair "racism" but I have to say touch is a major communicator of love and maybe I want to touch your curls because they are so lovely and so unlike anything I've ever touched. I'm not making anyone out to be right or wrong I'm just saying your hair is majestic and I want to bow down at its feet and touch it so that my fingers can better understand the art of your decisions. To marvel at how different and yet how similar we can be. You can touch my hair. Anytime, any day. I don't mind as long as you touch me with love and with interest. Can't we get to know each other? How will we ever become closer if the boundaries are so vast they become an ocean?
Ocean of strange
Ocean of strangers
Ocean of pain
Ocean of painters
Ocean of eyes
Swallow me.
Don't leave me in the shallow waters.