Subway rides seem slower
When you're in love with someone
Who loves you back.
I know, because I missed my
Stop coming home today.
See, I thought it would take longer,
But I was wrong.

I can't help but think that
If we lined up all those rides
Back and forth from home to home,
It would stretch farther than
Shakespeare's plays lined up
From comedy to tragedy to history.

(An order we're suited to.) And if
We were a play, we would have
Been deadly. Tickets would be
One by one, "Are you in love?"
Mostly no, but sometimes yes,
Then, "Lord, don't see this show.

It'll **** your kind, you know."
Because it-- because we would.
Because who wants to think that
"I love you" means
"Until I'm bored" or that
"Please don't leave" could ever be
Met with an expressionless face?

Sometimes I wonder if you took
All the romantic comedies this year
And played them in alphabetical
Order, would they be longer than
My messages on your machine?
(Or the ten seconds of your voice
Laughing in my tape recorder?)

The train rocks softly as I write this.
The noisy crush of people around me
Makes it hard to think, but nothing
(No matter what I try)
Makes it hard to remember.