the price of cleansing is this:
a free ride from uber —
featuring, soft eyes from a west european immigrant, stuck in pasadena at a job that includes
shuffling unhappy teenagers
from homes to places they ought not to be —
and a $10 metro ticket
to the heart of los angeles at dawn.
they say that cities are this country's backbone,
that without them, we lose everything.
my father, when angry, says,
"you have no backbone,"
and as I get on the train,
I have concluded that means that I am
nothing.
(among other things, he tells me that he is one breath away from never missing me again,
he says,
eight months is a long time to happiness.
my bed is always made.
i am never home.)
the window beside me is cracked.
a stranger plumps down in the seat in front of me and he smells of decaf mocha and sleepless nights.
the world is still dark;
I try my best to keep focused on the outside, anyway.
the stranger pulls his briefcase back and reveals his name, carved into scratched leather like an afterthought.
eli,
like
my friend's ex, who gave me his sweater to wear in ventura
the halloween before he killed himself.
"seven years of bad luck," he mentions, gesturing to the glass beside me.
it gets lighter, outside.
stranger eli takes a breath and fishes out turkish royals from his front pocket. he says,
"I can't smoke here, but do you want to share one when we get off?"
it occurs to me that I might have been crying,
because my eyes are stinging loud and Eli has pity oozing out of him and looks at me like I am fine china
about to fall off the table.
I say yes.
I have had enough of my lungs.
(my mother told me that
it means nothing to her
when I cry.)
but eli smirks, says,
"kid,
you're a little too young to die,"
puts his cigarettes back where he got them
and closes his eyes
to sleep.
I get off the train.
blakekathryn
germansingergirl
origamiaround
titsay
prguitarman
janainaart
vaporwave
