'brownstone of my body,' i had declared
privately my first confession. somewhat
intimate. and as my voice quivered like
name-tags on teenage trees, i hoped you
found me endearing in your brazen ways.
i come off as naive, to your unblinking gaze:
passive, unimpressed, and mostly unfazed.
my small pink feet are soft and raw against
your weathered knees. and you say my belly
is too mellow with its paper-doll creases, flesh
too easily torn by your cut-brick corners, face
too childish for your middle-aged games. but
my thighs are like your alleys, leave no space
for nonsense, is my whole as is my part, if you
can love me for my thighs, i will be content with
something along the lines of 'my brownstone
loves me for my thighs, my thighs
have no alleys and i would have it no other way' and
I would ask no question as the blossom of my tender body is
pinched between your fingers and rolled into a
tiny pink cigar, stamped out before ever being lit.
and i would never ask, is this (ever) womanhood?

Escaping memories I ran
To the setting of beginnings
In search of new encounters
A rescuer, an owner, a gentle

Word. Penn station had evolved
In years with my emotions,
Beguiling decadence lost
To opulence decay.

Pink granite covered in grime,
Glass filtering sunbeams had
Now turned light into grey,
Eerie shadows reflecting

My vanishing intentions,
Dwindling strength,
Waning hope.
The mellifluous cadence

Of alphanumeric flapping metals
That used to sooth me with dreams
Of arrivals and departures
Had been silenced for evermore.

Solari boards swapped
For liquid-crystal displays,
Even people had changed
Flaunting grimaces of disdain,

As they whispered rumours
Of terminal demolishment
To the benefit of a sporting arena
They would call The Garden.

I empathised with the unfluted
Columns of the Roman colonnade,
For I too had been deemed
Obsolete and inefficient,

A wreck no one shall retrieve,
To be suppressed, a panacea
For a collective consciousness
That would rather not see,

Turning blind eyes to me,
To cost-effective identity
Annihilation,
While Bobby freed of me

Won the New York State
Championship
At Poughkeepsie.

streets that once sang salvation
capricious with their mercury cracks
promised a sunlit city of night
to charismatic tramps

starlet girls drag men into motel rooms
desperate to make a buck
cafe drifters fumble for broken cigarettes
young harlots curse their luck

neon upstreet outlaws
don't hang around this part of town
just poor people's shadows and ambulance drivers
drifting around

the subway poet's disillusioned
didn't find his crystal jukebox queen
and despite his desperate, lovestruck words
the city is onerous to please

...see me walk in the club.
Man,
They say,

"Is he for real?"

*******,
I ain't dumb!

Get out the car
and I walk in the club
The walk isn't far
not just a walk,

just, just, just
-just enough

Feelin' it on me, lights and a crowd
doors open up see, -face hit with that loud?

Get out my car
and I walk into my club
check on the til

*******,

-this just ain't enough!
Ferrari, lake house, payroll and payments...
girls drop the attitude, I'm keeping you off pavements.

Now walk with me,

get close
no,

you ******* stay closer,
all these tricks here watchin'
now they see you as a grosser.
You throwing money down?
You know my ******* gonna take it
music is so loud,
now ******* you been breaked-in.

Tappin' that *** like Tappan Zee Bridge,
my girls made a connection and that's what it is.
See me get up, see me walk out this club
I got your whole paycheck, -maybe that's just enough?

Ferrari, lake house,
-and I own a club.

Living the dream, got a look and it's loud
I know you looking at me, I stand out in a crowd.

Gettin' in my Ferarr
as I leaving the club
Got a wife, got some kids

-cause,

-******* I ain't dumb.

Get out Ferarr, get, -get in my club
man
Get out Ferarr, get, -get in my club
man
Get out Ferarr, get, -get in my club
man
Get out Ferarr, get, -get in my club
Check your starring *****,
cause ******* I ain't done.

Get out Ferarr, get, -get in my club.

I don’t know why I keep coming down here
Into the dark abyss of these tunnels.
It’s like something’s calling out to me
Guiding my feet without my permission
Like I’m just along for the ride.

Water drips down from the lower level of the 82nd street station—
Downtown B and C train.
I’m in a cave with dripping stalactites
But instead of awe and wonder
All I’m bracing myself for
Is absolute collapse.

The train roars in
Ba Dum Ba Dum Ba Dum
Slowly making its way to a stop
With a whine of its wheels locking into place
And a screech of the doors opening, protesting all the way.

I know I shouldn’t get inside
Should walk the twenty blocks
In sub-zero temperatures
Where at least the light will shine—
But something beckons me from the darkness.

As the train slowly begins to move
I see the red and blue lights waiting, watching, outside the window
The apparent heterochromia of the monster that lives and breathes and is these tunnels.

I’m suddenly sure that I’ll never return.

The gates open,
the Masses rush through,
flowing like water and filling all space,
I am last on the train,
And just barely,
the gates slam my sides to remind me that I almost missed my ride.

There is a gloom in the air and it tastes like disappointment,
Kind of like when you leave French toast out too long after breakfast has been served,
It's old and stale and just not as it should be.

Long faces run for miles down the aisles,
every space in between is filled with resentment and bitterness,
This is not a feeling but a truth for New Yorkers on a long train ride home.

Amidst this gloom,
Rises a cheery little voice,

At first it's very faint,
Like a mouse amongst worlds,
But it begins to rise and grows more confident with every spoken word.

Wrapped in a violently pink scarf and topped with a baby blue hat with arms dangling down to her shins,
This voice construes words so simple and pure that the average heart can't help but to smile.
Even the tough souls,
The real down-on-their-luckers,
smirk and snicker as she reads.

The hero falls,
She cries out with angst!
The hero rises,
She cheers!
By now she has a following of non-admitters,
gently leaning in to hear more,
Because that's what they're coming to see,
To put face to the E Train Angel they’ve heard so much about,

The story is stock and so are it's characters,
They have been used and reused to fit every sequence,
We all know them well,
But for her it is real and true,
and it is not just a story,
but her story.

She reads on,
Words flowing from her lips like the sweetest song,
No lyrics and all melody,
She sings,
And by now the whole train is listening,
Even those many carts away,
can here a faint whisper of something warm and sweet.

The train rolls into station,
and our little angel rises to depart,
Hearts hit the floor,
a sound echoes through the train,
and it's something that can only be described as gray,
A fleeting moment of nostalgia has been abruptly ended.
Gloom soon sets in as she heads for the open doors,

Bodies disperse in front of her like a parting sea,
Slow and steady, and with minor hesitation,
they move to let her pass.

She's gone.

And what more can I say than I am glad that I caught the Train that day.