Have another drink,
Why don't you?
Take another sip?
The bartender's watching us closely but
If I give him a hearty enough tip
He'll leave us be
And we can slip
Down to the train tracks
Like our slurred words.

We won't make love but we'll
Lay on the mercury speckled rails
Singing our heads off,
Drinking some more ail till
The horn blares and
The insides of our eyes pool with gaudy lights from
Heaven above

And we're rolled to bits,
Leaving nothing behind but a trail
Of blood and
The heavenly light of tails.

I remember the inside:
A little red; a bit of grey.
Rows of leather seats and carpeted floors.
But it was when the journey began,
And I sat down,
My feet dangling over the edge,
Just like my anticipation -
They told me we'll be under the sea.
But I felt us moving;
The slow hum I heard eased me.
My eyes flickered to the window,
My parents' voices faded,
As I watched my reflection.
Then I noticed her. In the window.
I recognized her,
From where we had left.
It was while I was on my feet,
Hand clasped in my mother's,
But eyes fixed on her.
The girl sat waiting, sketchbook in her lap,
Pencil in her hand with her legs crossed.
It was crowded and clamorous,
Yet she paid no attention,
Her gaze set on her art,
Her movements steady.
The girl's raven hair was tied
And I think she wore something blue.
We went in together.
We sat on the left,
She sat on the right,
And drew.
And drew.
And drew.
And her pencil left dark marks on snow-like paper,
As her hands moved fast, then slow.
I couldn't help but watch.
I strained to look away,
But the window only showed…
Black. Bricks.
Darker than her hair. And her pencil.
We were underwater, but I didn't care.
I was more intrigued by the girl
Who sat so close, but was so far away.
Practically living in a different world.
I was helpless, shy, way too curious.
I wondered what she was thinking. And drawing.
It was pure, innocent, fascination.
Then the train stopped.
She stopped.
I stopped.
Because we had arrived.
We left.
She was gone.
I was bored.
Again.

Bleary-eyed, an old man asks for change,
coins rattling in his hand. A woman
hands him saltine crackers across the aisle.
“God bless you,” he mutters, takes a seat,
and unwraps the plastic with shaking hands.
He smiles at her before she leaves the train.

Tonight, the passengers on the train
are surprisingly quiet for a change.
We are all staring down at our hands.
And then the silence breaks - a woman
cackles aloud to herself in her seat.
Her laughter travels up and down the aisle.

I overhear a conversation across the aisle
between a couple who’ve just entered the train,
and are searching for a pair of empty seats.
They’re muttering “the country is changing”
and they say they are afraid. The woman
sighs, and reaches for her lover’s hand.

I look over at a child holding her mother’s hand.
I meet the little girl’s gaze from across the aisle.
I see myself as a child too, but to her I’m a woman.
I wonder how often the little girl rides the train.
Does she long to see something else for a change -
something other than the back of a seat?

I notice a lady who has started dancing in her seat,
snapping her fingers and waving her hands,
bobbing to a silent beat. I imagine her changing
into a sequined dress and waltzing down the aisle,
giving everyone a performance to watch on the train.
I imagine standing up and dancing with that woman

and then everyone begins to dance with the woman -
we all jump up onto our seats
and suddenly we are in a ballroom, not a train.
We are tapping our feet and clapping our hands
to the music - the little girl across the aisle
is dancing with the old man who asked for change.

The train stops. We’ve arrived at my station. The dancing woman leaves the train. The passengers change and now there are strangers in their seats. I wave my hand goodbye to the little girl as I walk past her down the aisle.

The doors slid aside at Métro 1,
A interminable tube driven by an inhumane robot,
To take hundreds to their lovers, their homes, their offices.

A girl fantasying about her lover, A man scathe in love,
An old woman enamored with The Price of Salt,
facing the young man with a Kindle spirit.

A foreign girl with passion for the city,
slides through the crowd,
And an indigenous man wished he was somewhere else than here.
At the next stop a man bids a farewell kiss to her girlfriend.
And in comes a middle-aged couple,
Enters in with a hatred for one another.

I stood for my final stop,
the doors slid aside,
and I got down.

A couple of goodbye words to these swaths of strangers,
who color my dark life with smiles and tears.
"Farewell strangers, I shall meet you another day at another time."

decisions are based on forgetfulness
the agony of the sick child inside of me
i can't walk any further, i can't stay here
don't want to jump in front of an express train

the image of my little daughter is present
the way she utters the words "papa" and "hi"
papa is daddy in german, i want to live on
i want to die, i don't want to die in pity

dying an old man is better than suicide
the strings of despair are the strings of hope
route 36 / bolivia / white frost / toxic faces
glaciers of doubts / silverred bloodstream

my heart is beating on 888 beats per minute
battlerapping is a good weapon against depression
been writing against the opponent called myself
it is never about the others but about inner struggle

in long-term rehab, there are many psychologists,
speeding through the aisles of responsibility
around us are deep and darkgreen forests and hills
we are isolated from human civilization to heal

i fear the day of my return into the city of money and sins
the innocence of my two children is tattooed on my body
how could i **** their images by taking my own life?
right now, i am listening to the strings of despair and hope

by the end of the day, each letter will have become dust
a golden lion with a twinkling mane is protecting me
he is a disciple of god and thinks he is just a toy
god's power is greater than every single human act

nothingness was before him and he created nothingness

‘I ain’t tired!’ yells the homeless, old man begging for change
On the green line station me and my friends get off at to buy coffee
He turns and looks at us
‘I ain’t tired!’ yells the toothless, old man on that cold winter night
As we preemptively pull out our phones and look down at the ground
A defense mechanism
‘I ain’t tired!’ yells the hobbling, old man as we pass him by
Without making eye contact or even a sympathetic nod
If only I had cash on me
‘I ain’t tired!’ repeats the mentally ill, old man while we descend
The stairs down onto the pavement and into Chinatown
The snow continues falling
‘I ain’t tired!’ echoes the starving, old man
His voice ringing in my ears long since we’d left ear shot
The only time I had the courage to glance at him
He was a mess of wires and bone and cloth and paint and white hair
Older than the city I had just begun to explore and call home
Permanently on that train station yelling
‘I ain’t tired!’
‘I ain’t tired!’
‘I ain’t tired!’

I’ve been on a train of anxiety.
I’m not sure when I stepped on board
or how long I was on it.
All I know is I got to a point
where my mind and body both said
“Stop this train, I want to get off”.
That sudden halt, the screech of the brakes…
I was standing but then I was floored.

I think I crawled off the train
and right now I’m lying on the platform.
People are knocking on the windows saying,
“Get back on, this is the only way
you can really get to where you’re going,”
rushing me towards somewhere.
But if I walk, I can enjoy it and take in so much more.
I can still get to where I need to be,
it might just take me a bit longer to get there.

Luckily I have the option to walk
and a handful of people who really care
and support me along the way.
But there’s still a voice in my head
that occasionally says "you couldn’t handle the train",
so many other people can.
I think I know, somewhere deep down,
that I’m not them and they might get off
somewhere down the line too
…Or maybe they’re riding a different train.