Towering giants
Unstable
Slippery footing
Sharp edges
Glass too thin
Handrail too low
Goodness, my legs are trembling
Cowering
Clutching
Struggling
To gain control
Over breaths
Look normal...

Meeting up
In a multistorey
Mall
Looking for mum
In the building
Escelators
Escelators
Everywhere
She's probably
At that shop
At the very
Top

Up we go,
On them escalators
A long long way to go
Heights
Tremors
Just look up
No,
That's the ceiling
Just look straight
At your feet
Keep breathing
Hold on

Up we go
Up we go
Endless flights
Of escalators

Till the final one is passed
Safe on solid ground
I look around
Left and right
Up and down
There she is:
Right at the bottom floor

This is a mockery

The same way I came
The same way I went
Setting my sights
On my slow moving
Target

The way up was hard;
The way down was worse.
So high up
Off the ground
So close up
To the ceiling
Grasping tightly
Nowhere to look
But down
Down
Down

Swaying
Trembling
Feeling like
Falling
The edges will do
Or just simply forwards
Eyes squeezed
Tightly shut
The world spins
How I wish I could
Sit

The long arduous journey
Finally ending,
A leap too early
And we end up
Free falling

It might not
Have been real
But the risk
Is there
Still
And the terror
Exists

I’ve fallen out of love
I fell out of lust
A long time ago
Before you even noticed

I wish I still felt the same
as I did that first day
I wish those butterflies
would finally find their way

These escalators are going down
We could take steps backwards
But lose ourselves on the way up

I had high hopes
We could have found
What made us perfect
But now its not worth it
Anymore

Before I was your girl
But now as a woman
I’m not yours

Threads come undone
The pieces
Me and you
Don’t fit

It makes me
Kind of sad
That we lost our
Magic

The Rabbit won't come out of its hat
You can't pick my card
You can't find my heart

The people we were
young love birds
have changed
have lost common ground
on everything

But maybe
in the future
we'll have the same map
we'll meet up at the same place
it'll feel like that first day
even though the past has passed.

They always do work
Even when they are broken
They always do work

stair w
        a
        y stair w
                   a
                   y stair w
                              a
                              y stair w
                                         a
                                         y stair w
                                                    a
                                                    y stair w
                                                               a
                                                               y sta
No escalators to heaven , no free rides .
Just one long hard climb , one step at a time .

So I turned 32 today.
Penniless birthday,
almost.

Howling rains
woke me up
and I fell back asleep.
And the cat respected my
birthday.
Did not claw my lips like
my usual feline alarm.

The birthday flowers
in the morning
were vivid.
My mother bought them,
deep red and
deep yellow.

I requested
for birthday lunch
my mother’s
home-cooked burgers
and fries sprinkled with
iodized salt.
And I filled myself up
with them hot and crispy
fries
and didn’t care if they
stayed inside my guts
until 2014.

I never really liked cake.
Opted for a dozen original glazed.
Heavenly donuts.
Two of them tumbled down
the escalators.
The first birthday flaw.
Like a bleep in the
grand scheme of
birthday things.

I brought them to a Greek
restaurant.
My mom and dad
and two sisters.
Not really hungry.
Just hungry
for a different taste.

The salad had candied
walnuts among the greens
and the reds.
Progressive Greece.

Then a classic lamb dish.
Classic Greece.
And the waiters
in stuffy white
bellowed a birthday
greeting, dropping the “h”
from my name.
Belted out a non-Grecian
birthday song.
No Grecian dance.

But they gave me
an ice cream treat.
Lighted a solitary
blue candle, which
balanced on the semi-liquid
hills of vanilla, caramel and
walnuts.
The small ice cream hills
illuminated by
the dancing
birthday light.

The escalator of despair
Was waiting with her normal nonchalance stare
Her teeth constantly in motion
Offering the tip of a landscape below
A place of not knowing, not a place one is keen to go

I stepped on her teeth with huge trepidation
Leaving behind what was once was a friendly station

I rode the escalators down to this place
Reading posters, signs of things that
Were going to take place
Theatre, drama, the musical of my life
A pantomime made of my own strive

I followed the tunnels deeper they fell
Marking out pathways and other people’s  roads to hell

I found myself on a platform
Cold and Bleak
I looked around me in the hope
Of finding someone to whom I could speak

But I found no map of the line I was attending
Instead just a blankness and huge hole, darkness and fright
That looked unending
Looking for direction, for the interchanges that my destination
Was depending.

I could hear the sound of the train approaching
I could feel vibrations and and see rats encroaching
Encroaching on my light now lost, glimpses of my life beginning to rot

Don’t dance over the yellow line they said, stand back
For the train approaching is just ahead
Its lights dancing on the tunnels walls
Announcing its arrival, big not small

The noise is deafening, screeching and loud
The voice of my own despair now hidden in its vacuous cloud

A smashing sound as it brakes through
The blackness into light speeding through
Hugging the platform really tight
Reducing space so as passengers can alight

Doors part open and people descend
On to a platform that appears to have no end
This is not a place to stand still
The body of people is a perfume despair wants to distill

So move down the platform and keep shuffling along
Belongings of your heart held tight moving to the  rhythm of the throng

So I enter the carriage quickly and sit
Next to a man clutching his pit
The pit that comes to close to me
Smells rank and ****** and full of hypocrisy


Off into a place that is forever dark
Momentary fireworks the only sparks
That give you a glimpse of another line
A line perhaps to happiness or somewhere else sublime

Out of nowhere a train caresses, moves so close
and  brings aboard  a message

For other people are traveling too
To places that were not on their list of ‘to do’’
Riding parallel down darkened tunnels
Moving to their own rhythm, humming their own song
Rocked by a train, speeding hastily along
Turning a corner and now that train is gone

So we are not alone on the darkest rides that we take
We are not alone on the escalators that we think I taking us to meet our fate
For we all have a choice an opportunity to ride
Alone or with travelers by our side

Customers have torn open the Christmas
chocolates. Shoving it in mouths,
shopping bags, children’s eyes.
Quiet. We are shopping. as. a. family.
Smoke accordions out of Santa’s mailbox. The sprinkler system
hisses stale air. Custodians ride by on their metal cart laughing,
sanitation chemicals flickering out of buckets.
The 80 year-old piano player is hammering out Schoenberg.
Customers shove lamps into their shopping bags, shove children
into them.
Turn on the light Jimmy.
The ninth floor is barricaded off by old woman. They
have turned the clearance divans on their sides
and are throwing toasters. Down in the basement,
the security staff have locked themselves into 2’ by 2’
cells. Fetally-positioned, their panting echoes off stone walls. Static
sizzles on the array of sixteen camera screens. Customers
have begin to bow in the reinforced door next to the two-way mirror.
A fat man is leaning against it. He has been dead
for over an hour. Restaurant staff are tearing
down the great tree. Ornaments funnel down pop-crashing
upwards from the floor. Three pound ceramic dinnerware crashes
into the walnut bar The customers are putting mattresses in their bags,
they are putting the offices in their bags. Human resources
are backed into the employee orientation computer lab. Customers
have poured Starbucks on the circuit-breakers. The lights are dimming,
Escalators are jamming. Children scream
I want to see Santa.
Santa is dead. Employees calmly walk over  his protruding
belly. The velvet and fat feels good on tired
feet. An inhuman voice garbles
The store will be closing.
Families grab onto shelves, racks, other
families. Employees pick up the registers and slam
them on granite counters. Coins explode out like bells. The rotating
doors are not spinning. They are stuck, crunching on limbs.

This is the place where people come to forget that they will die one day.

They let their conscience build up on the linoleum floor in puddles,
deep and dark
And follow the crowd to the next store
And the next
And the next.

This place will bleed you.
It will tear your pockets out of your clothing
And your children’s hands from yours.

A new shirt.
A new TV.
Well done.
You’ve done well.

But when you leave the white walls
The music tinny and dim
Escalators and litter
You still won’t feel free.

-arriving at eglington west station-

there's the fragrance drifting off
of her shoulders
as she checks her reflection
on smartphone mirror app,
floral pattern matching the
bright of her nails,
the sun shining onto sequined flats
that show no wear.

-glencairn, glencairn station-

there's her youth indicated by
backpack, baseball cap,
and conversation subject matter
discussing video game system merit,
there's the hand me down excitement
of muddy knees and torn jeans,

-arriving at lawrence west station-

each millimetre contributing to grimace,
beard whisker, wrinkle stationed
to the sides of each of his eyes,
weary traveller, seemingly ignoring
everyone with grocery bag
occupying chair like child,

-Yorkdale, Yorkdale station-

we used to weave through these crowds
and people watch together,
and the people would watch us,
young love, so simple,
oblivious to stage,

fingers interlocked, blocking
crowds from passing by,
there was the taste of strawberry
banana smoothie, freshly squeezed,
on your lips, we'd race up
escalators, only to circle
back down, we'd find the nook
of book store, to steal a moment,
you'd ignite, ignoring the clatter
of barrista, starbucks adjacent,

and there would walk by or sit
dolled up princess,
adolescent tomboy,
aging cantankerous senior,

these faces haven't changed
as much as ours have.

-please stand clear of the doors-

The Empire State Building is a giant *******
Concrete is broken, NYPD, taxis racing, red light green light
I enter the hand of the city through it's capillaries breaking mad concrete
Warm gusts of ****, grime, and transportation swallow me
The city feeds off dreams and hope which we personally, willingly give up
We all somehow learn to accept this fate 
The passerby no longer human but broken mirror 
The hand inundates my eyes from breezes of tomorrow
The spacy apartment, and the affluent career and the acquantanceship
Of the handful of New Yorkers that run the hand: all questionable plans today
It's as if the hand's grasp, although sharp and brick, would venerate your intellect, guaranteed
If that's the case, I see wizards of wisdom everyday snoozing on concrete and cardboard and plastic
Bearded, black with dirt and skin, threads ripped by a world inferrior than the one in thier minds
Empire "*******" State  of intellect, scrapping billion dollar clouds
Sardine can subways, escalators, elevators, high on crack **** speed of sound
The cash nerve system meltsdown into golden chips to feed the pigeons
Glass and steel craft spaces for modernity to be sold like a Washington Heights *****
You can feel the growth of the hand at the end of your intestines
It's a warm, uncomfortable vibration revealed in your *******
Foreign tongues buzz through the air, through your hair for 19.95
New York needs a haircut, some profound discipline so we wake up from this bizzare life of welcomed pain
You once charmed me with hopes of culture, open minds, connections, real connections, love and laughter
Yet, Today I am hungry in Murray hill
I am cold in Chelsea
I am broken in Union Square
I ***** in SoHo
I have fallen in the East River
And I bleed on financial monoliths 
Someone have mercy on my wills
It is an intention trying to be fulfilled
But failed when it became self-aware