Choose another bitter morning routine -
whether from cold, coffee, or compression,
As in "man, I really need to just relax and decompress"
But without the last bit happening.
Choose to let it sink in until you can bite it off,
Choose the pressure because it feels like home,
Choose to dally, choose self-sabotage,
Choose kicking at the gears of your routine until
Something warps under the strain until
It fits like you never believed it would.
Choose the long way into work, a million faces
Nodding off behind their steering wheels,
The city's symphony still trying to get in tune,
Still trying to harmonize with, with, with, with
Whatever gets them to their job still sane, all
Trying to dance to beats only they can hear,
Howling out careworn verses they scrawled
By trailing their lives along the road:
The rhythm of the city is discord and hell.
I've lived near cities for nearly all of my life. Now, relative isolation - visits to the countryside, even visits to towns which AREN'T suburbs - is more innately concerning, even confusing, even confounding, to me than the constant threat of terrible local drivers. Maybe I'm addicted to the city and I just don't know how to do without.
