I wrote this based on Jubilee line from your city gave me asthma.
It was supposed to be for school but I'm also gonna post it here cuz I really loved writing it and it is related enough :)
*'----------------------------Jubilee line-----------------------------'*
1007 words
2 hours
its like the clocked had betrayed me. Like it had chosen to run
its thin hands of time just slow enough for me to feel it fade. To feel the rope connecting the
two of us as we moved threw the apartment tether and tie itself to only the objects left
behind.
The words spoken like daggers to the heart and mind stabbing deep and swiftly with no
regard. All missing the line I so desperately hoped would be cut to free the pit in my stomach
and the tightening in my chest.
I wished I could have said it surprised me. I wish I could have described the feeling as a
surprise and a swift cut. But the more I sat, the more we weaved around one and other
without a word as if only to coexist without mention or notice of one and other.
Those daggers if ever to be planted were supposed to uproot my being. Cause me to call
friends desperately trying to piece together what I was unable to build on my own.
But instead, I knew. From the moment you opened your mouth that night. The knives had
been planted, placed, dangerously from minute one. Wavering. Slowly pushing deep within
with every lack of words, lack of feeling, lack of attention drawn from one and other. The
sharp pain wasn’t new or sudden.
I held the door open that night. The apartment dimmed every step you took threw the old
musted and water damaged halls of the cheapest apartment we could find. At the time it was
easy to overlook.
The taste of soil and earth that drained itself, only ever cold from the kitchen sink was
only something I agreed to in haste. In condition. Now the condensation on the glass feels
wasted and irritating as I take labored sips of the stale and potent liquid.
the air that drew threw the cracked windows
always drew in the frigid cold. I tolerated it. On conditions alone. Promises of getting out
together. Now you leave not removed nor untethered from me. connected to the old jacket
you left in the closet, your painting you framed arrogantly and boastfully above the old
stained couch, and the shoes, you left simply because they would never get you where you
needed to go.
It had only been a day. You left to stay in a hotel till the subway could take you where
you needed to go. Yet I still couldn’t figure out why that couldn’t be here.
In this old stale apartment. Littered with only slightly good furniture and appliances.
Filled with cracks and leaks that we would hide behind wall decorations and under rugs.
Where I had spent my night throat sore and raw from yelling questions at the impossibly thin
and un-responding walls. Begging for the reasons you didn’t give me. Didn’t explain.
My lips were left chapped and salted by tears and dehydration as I fall asleep with a
pounding headache and tight chest leaving it hard to breath.
The next thing my dizzying thoughts comprehend is a message, clearly un rehearsed and
unedited written in haste on the way to the station. Sent at 11:58pm. The words spelt wrong
left without punctuation or poetic feelings that you used to weave in so effortlessly with
every seemingly normal and humane message lacking and seemingly unavailable now.
Without second thought my feet on the concrete side walks. Pounding and racing heartily
down deserted and empty walkways once bustling with the people of business that fitted so
seamlessly into the London atmosphere.
My throaty still soar and hoarse my cheeks still wet from the tears shed earlier that night.
Not much earlier. Only leaving for a hour of restless rest.
My legs seem to easily allow me to trip, and plummet distracted by them. Distracted by
what ifs. My knees now dented, bloodied, ruined and broken open and seasoned in the dirt
and dust of the somehow unrelentingly quiet city.
I pick myself up unwillingly. My body seeming to give up. To chose to truly undo what I had tried to desperately to do.
With heavy breath and blood tainting my blemished and beaten knees I continue my now
staggered pursuit of the underground rails.
They were about to leave, about to be gone. They had chosen someone else and yet all I
could do was move forward towards the spaces below the seemingly abandoned city streets.
I clammer down the stairs. It stings. It stings physically, it stings internally. The emotion
wells up in my eyes taking form of salted tears that soil my cheeks but not for the first time
since they had said they needed to leave.
The moist dirty smell so strong it corrodes and taints my palette forcing a cough and a
gage as I race out into the gate.
I see them.
Then I don’t.
The train begins to lurch forward and race its way around from the platform with speed I
could never match. With the person I could never let go. The only thing I can think is how
close they were. The way they had just stepped onto the shuttle to take them away from here.
From me.
How if he had just been quicker, he could have grabbed the edge of their green bomber jacket sleeve and at least said a untainted and genuine goodbye.
One meant to send them off to someone else with my warmest regards and my unwilling
understanding. With my hopes for them to be safe and that they take of themselves even though I wouldn’t be there to see or aid them. To tell them I rather die then wish them ill or
hurt them.
But they were gone.
Down the tunnel.
Gated off and bared just out of reach.
After all.
Maybe there’s a reason London put barriers on the rail.
