They say, in the city of dreams
We only look towards the sea in the west,
The open, the surreal emptiness
amidst all the concrete realities.

The waves recede to only come back stronger
As if they are listening to our voices,
While colliding against all that is brick and mortar,
Spraying the fruit of a wasted effort,
On the children of the promenade

The bricks are here to stay, and so is the sea
Both in mutual agreement to not harbour
Any more than what they can take

Swipe in to enter
The machine said
And we did
we intend to do the same
on a daily basis,
Immerse ourselves into a fake promise called
Income, stability and a preconceived notion
called “life, the way it is”

For once the machine, couldn’t recognise
The faded lines on the thumb,

Walk away,
we walk away till we reach
the queen’s necklace
where it all began,
Dreams, hope and salvation.
The perfect place to revisit
Decisions, choices and the way forward
But we fail to look into any as we take a pause
From all that is normal.
To gaze at the surreal horizon
Ebbed in the promenade that is home to all of us.
“Swipe out to exit” Nobody says
As we dwell in the possibility of a better tomorrow

The local, strides through the rotten rails,
Metal to metal, rust to rust
The boggy sways and along with it, the hangers who
Hang in there, not by choice but by the might
Of time, distance, and bills to pay
The feeling is mutual as we stand, sway
Push, pull, and grab on to anything just to balance
Yet the journey never ends
It only begins.

The long breath before the plunge into the sand,
That which makes you want to not pick yourself up,
For once you know, you get ***** by the end of the month,
But the greens you can count on,
Makes it rather a fair deal, or does it?

The real question is, would you rather deceive yourself
and the rest of the world, for the denomination,
to only trade your fortune to be in the rut  that is called
the day to day life of the survivors,
Suffering from the plague that is called The Normal