As the rain trails down the window,
Each droplet either standing alone,
or conjoining to form a stream.
Shadowed faces blur and shift,
as the river of souls pours into the train,
a moving gallery of stories
half-told, half-missed.
A woman with tired hands,
fingers ink-stained, smudging the page.
She writes in loops and pauses,
sorting through words that don’t yet exist.
A letter unsent? A memory unfinished?
Her lips move as if whispering to a ghost.
A man grips his suitcase tight,
knuckles white against the worn leather.
He checks the lock, once, twice, again,
he checks his ticket once, twice, thrice, again,
breathes in, breathes out—but it isn’t steady.
Is he running toward something,
or away?
Perhaps both feel the same.
A teenager watches the world smear past,
but their eyes are set inwards,
fixed on the watch in their palm,
a gift too heavy for their wrist,
but heavier still in meaning.
What used to be the time keeper of stories,
now only keeps the time for the last moments shared.
A whisper of "Take care now,"
a trembling wrinkled hand pressing it into theirs,
a last look before the train doors closed.
Behind them, the station fades,
a figure stands in the cold rain,
hand raised, but never quite waving,
face blurred by glass and distance.
They do not turn back.
Because turning back means hoping,
and hope makes leaving unbearable.
And I—just another reflection,
half-seen in the trembling glass,
a passing ghost among the living,
watching, never known.
A more sad and heartfelt poem about the lived experience and how we perceive the lives of those around us from the shallow interactions we have
