Sitting underneath a palmtree.
Its shadows creating a piece of art on the gloomy obscure grey street tiles in front of me.
As the wind flows the portrait of leaves is flowing with it in harmony.
It is dancing to its favorite tune.
A tune especially made for this moment. A tune of mother nature at its purest. A tune I can listen to forever.

Tear, tear, tear.
Spend classes tearing paper into tiny bits.
Why do I do it?
(Tearing until my fingers hurt.)

Count, count, count.
Almost run into people every few minutes.
Why do I do it?
(Count my bones whenever I can.)
(Count the steps on the stairs when I ran.)
(Count the steps I take and how many breaths I draw.)

I am aware that everyone sees me,
counting and tearing and restarting,
and I don't want to stop even though it's not with a degree of panic.

Check, check, check.
Check so many things again and again,
but not the things that are really important.
(Check that everything's not changing or if it is.)

in a box
candy
chips
two apples
a pear
are in the box

the box
is sitting
on white
tiles
and that
is where
the box
lies

The gap between the platform and the subway car
seems to grow the closer you get to it
Until crossing it seems like the worst idea you could make
But you close your eyes and brave the void
Taking care not to thin about the tracks beneath
So alive in their snaking routes and tortured screeches.
The doors shut abruptly once you've sardined inside
And its all you can do to grab onto something, anything
Before the wheels begin to turn again
And you're lurched into some other time,
Some other place
As the tunnels decide what your fate will be.
And the doors will open again
As a ghost of a platform appears
But commuters be weary
For the tunnels and the tiles can be deceitful
So as you leave the decay
And the fractured tiles behind
Take caution
You might not notice it at first
You might not notice it at all
But the subway tunnels are unpredictable
And they enjoy making the rules
So the vortex you thought you imagined with the tunnel's lights speeding past the windows of the train
Might have actually transported you to some unknown city
To some other dimension
And there's no turning back.

the cracking concrete stairway practically reeks darkness
this is the entrance to the labyrinth.
step by step constantly downward until the sliver of sun that you always thought would be visible has finally disappeared
and left nothing but the blinking of the dim artificial light broken by time.
the warmth you surely felt outside has been leeched away
leaving a constant chill to raise the hairs on your arms
every time the ghost of a subway train emerges from the depths of the tunnels to all sides.
crude steel and fissured tiles paint the portrait of the lives that have passed through here
the tracks making no distinction between foreigner and local as they dole out their fates.
and every rushing train blurring the shadowy lights of the tunnel
reaffirms your suspicion that this is a vessel through a vortex in disguise as a breaking down train.
and as the doors slide open once the wheels lock and screech in agony until the momentum is stopped,
take caution
for the city you exited from into the subway
may not be the same you’ll enter here.

Reflecting the sun
our eyes
a blindness is amplified

We deny what's beneath

This skin can be shattered

it must

it must or it will last