Night on the L

The roads are black in an evening half-light, cast more by street lamps and neon signs than anything else. Overhead is an endless charcoal cloud that erases the skyline and drips rain on the buildings below. The rain trickles down window panes and splashes into gutters. Sidewalks are slick with oily water that reflects store front windows like glassy black mirrors. No one is on the street and even the homeless have found some corner or alley to sink into. The city is as quiet as it could ever be; not even the taxis are wailing on their horns... there isn't any one to honk at. Rumbling on its tracks, the L seems lost in a sea of wet cement with hardly a reason to hurtle forward any more.

Sad

The wind lashes past me, scraping exposed skin.
Hands, neck, ears, fingers all white and stiff.
My whole body leans into each step with the effort of cutting through the gale force.
My eyes are stung and weeping,
But I don't mind the bitter cold freezing my skin and icing my bones.
I welcome it.
It's the only real thing for me at that moment...
Or perhaps in a world of striking realities it stands out to me as surreal.
And as I suppress guilt, sadness, anger
The wind whips up and pierces me.
Everyone on the street is miserable... everyone in this city, possibly.
Suddenly I am not alone.
Suddenly there is no need to share my feelings,
Because the wind already has.

City

Written in week 2 of the CRP:

The city makes me feel like a poet. There are so many things to see and feel, observe. It overloads my senses and makes me want to put down thick imagery of sights and sounds. I have all these silly ideas, puns, run on sentences; I have this urge to use long words in cliched tones. And my thoughts sprout from my mind as rambling theories, questions, ponderings.

On the train, hundreds of people pack together, rushing to get home. Hundreds of people who don't know each other spend halves of hours brushing shoulders and grazing hands or tapping backs and twisting legs. A woman backs into me and we stand butt to butt as if nothing is wrong. I spend ten minutes breathing on a man's hand as he grips the metal hand railing in front of me while I feel hot puffs of air on my neck as someone else breaths on me.

It's a feeling unique to the city, I think. That feeling of being completely alone in the world mixed with a camaraderie that comes from shared experiences. No one talks to each other, except to say sorry and excuse me. No one makes eye contact except to smile forgiveness. During the rush hour train ride, everyone is a stranger and everyone is a friend... or at least friendly.

The city and I have a love/hate relationship...