Nightly spirit’s journey toward home
Is no one going that way?
No one else wants to go home yet
Kind stranger, can you tell me where the subway is,
It looks like East New York, or Broadway in Brooklyn,
in Bedford Stuyvesant and there’s gotta be
a subway entrance around here somewhere
searching all four corners, calculating the city grid
I never pay, I always slip the stall like a ghost
and it’s crowded on the 2/3/4/5/G train platform
It’s so crowded I end up hanging off the scaffolding
from an above ground train platform, maybe in Long Island City
I’m holding on tight, dangling above dark water
I think that if my shoes fall off, even one of them, the rest
of my walking journey will be hard. My feet will hurt badly
At least one of my high heeled shoes is sliding off my foot
dangling as if from a barbie doll, as if it isn’t real
I’ll have to pull myself back up to get on that train
Fling myself right back up, like a bat
When I enter the car, everyone is running out, as if from a bad situation or an intolerable smell (or both), and there’s one, crazy
homeless person sitting there by the pole, amid all her bright trash
but it doesn’t stink (because I’m a spirit, we don’t smell)
I’m fine riding in this car
but I don’t think I made it home
I got in walkable distance
but it was so tiring
All I wanted was to go out for a couple hours
Be the Cinderella of the ball, then come back on the metro
Thinking, Maybe I’ll go to college in the Canadian province
Get another Masters degree or something
Maybe there are more lives to be lived