The platform smells like skunked beer and rain,
a combination that feels almost romantic
if you tilt your head the right way.

I’m here because I missed the earlier one,
but maybe that’s the point.
Maybe everything worth waiting for
comes late, sticky, and half-empty.

I lean against the pillar,
fingers tracing someone’s graffiti confession—
MARIA, COME BACK.

I wonder if Maria stood here once,
tracing her own name in the dark,
wondering if it was enough to stay.

I hope she didn’t.
I hope Maria found something better
than this station,
this boy with a Sharpie
and a bad sense of timing.

I decide Maria is smarter than me,
that she’s already figured out
how to leave for good.

The train squeals like someone giving up
mid-argument, its voice cracking
just before the silence. I step inside
like a swallowed comeback.

The train jerks forward, pulling me with it,
an accomplice to leaving,
taut between the tension of wanting to stay
and disappearing into every local stop we make.

I press my forehead to the window
and watch the city unravel backwards—
neon signs blinking like eyelids,
lights flickering like answers
to questions I’ve stopped asking.

For a moment, I’m so full of joy
it feels reckless—
like daring a wave to pull me under,
knowing it probably will,
like I’ve stolen something precious
and can’t bear to give it back.

For a moment, I’m so full of hope
it feels wild—
like I’ve caught a glimpse of something
I’ve spent my whole life trying not to lose,
like maybe this train is taking me somewhere
I’ve been running from my whole life.

And then the lights flicker,
and I laugh—
because of course they do.
Because nothing this weird and beautiful
could ever come without a catch.

The train jerks,
a man drops a tallboy,
its amber spray spreading like a secret—
a casualty of motion,
spraying my boots,
reaching me before I can move,
because some things always do.

The rain streaks the windows,
the world pressing its palms
against the glass,
trying to remind me it’s still there.

And me? I’m here—
alive, for better or worse,
in this strange, messy moment,
with a Sharpie in my bag
and an urge to go back and write my name
like a flare next to Maria’s,
just in case she’s still out there
and she’d like to know I’m out here too.

This is what we do:
leave traces in places
we’ve long since abandoned,
hoping someone sees them
before they’re painted over.

my fingers, desperately tracing – tear through the fabric of my sheets;
in my dreams people recite such beautiful poems... oh, how I wish I
could have written them all down. i fought myself in a dream battling
my own spirit to awaken, but all I was able to write down was...

                                                         ­  silence!

now, I yearn to return to that ephemeral instant, riding the rails of my
mind – a train of thought; aboard a back train seeking the lost echoes
of my backed-up thoughts.

                                        that last train to find a another poem!

The train didn’t leave the station—
it just waited for me to give up chasing it,
its engine a wolf panting in the dark,
smoke curling into the air
like the echo of a laugh,
a smirk I couldn’t outrun.

I ran because stopping felt like failure.
I ran like if I reached it, I’d finally be enough.
I ran until my lungs screamed,
until the soles of my shoes
wore whispers into the gravel.
I swore I heard it call my name,
but maybe it was just the wind,
mocking the way I mistook movement
for meaning.

For a moment, it slowed—
just enough to make me believe
I could catch it,
just enough to make me think
it wanted me there.

The train didn’t leave.
It sat there,
watching me unspool myself,
mile by mile,
breaking like an old clock
that refused to tick.

I thought if I ran fast enough,
I could earn its departure—
prove I was worthy of being left behind.
But it was never about speed.
It was about surrender,
about learning that some things
stay still just to watch you fall apart.

The train never moved.
It stayed quiet,
its shadow stretching long,
swallowing me whole,
burying me in forgetting.

I stopped running.
And that’s when I realized—
the train was never waiting for me.
It was waiting to remind me
that some things linger like shadows,
stretching long enough
to teach you how to let go.

Unbound chaos crafted by illegal hands
beautiful tragedies in the eyes of 2 sides
A vandal’s artwork so articulate it’s a crime
We’ll never know their name or the history of how they came to be
But only imagine in the graffiti we see
Dashing expression, in spontaneous speed
Lovely locomotive tapestry

Huddled, strained, with craned necks to the board,
They wish for that missing number,
The hope they wait upon—
The launchpad to their homes.

Puzzled, drained, enraged—the muttered sounds.
They miss that sudden cue,
The rush to be the one;
That fearful scrum of drones.

Tom Lefort

In the compartment

window, we kiss and we merge --


with the May blossoms.

In an echo chamber
                                                                ­       horns blare

As her words    
                       dissipate
shared
                         soothing
  unfettered
                             laughter
   reverberates                    
                                ­   through every fiber
    finding                                                ­
                                           the darkest recesses
     burrowing                                                        ­              
                                                      its soothing claws deep
      keeping me                                                               ­                   
                                                                ­      rooted to the tracks
      I stain
                                                           ­           the cowcatcher
      I grind                                                            ­                              
                                  ­                                    through the gears
      I mince                                                            ­                            
                                                                ­      under the wheels
     I capitulate                                                       
        ­                                              over passed rails
    gutted

   fluid

  flows

freely

as her words


skinned and butchered
brand pastoral memories
and feed the mouths of mongers
boring into their last meal

Roaming night drives
beneath patchworked moonlight                                                        ­
over rural roads now

solo

all arrive at the same dirt
as calm conversation displaced
by glazed rumination

ends bumpy regardless
Their music
The Ambiance of a Restless Night
softening the shock

So tired
The baby next to me
Is loud
I'm worried
The thoughts
Run a marathon
And it goes
On
And
On
And
On
And
On
My heartbeat racing
My mind is tracing
Every fear,
That could come near,
It's more than insecurities,
It's rather severe.

I'm anxious on the train.