early Thursday morning, an ode to public transport
this morning I lay in bed
awoken by my bladder
the lone motivator for my voluntary movement, these days
but I lay in my bed
and it was the early morning, mind you, the time when the city was alive but not
quite awoken
Tony Stark before coffee, if you will
where the masses stumbled under the greater influence of routine than of
conscious individuality
although what is individuality but a matter of perspective and scope
but for the sake of the next 29 lines of prose
let’s assume that with enough similarities
individuals form a cohesive enough unity
and I lay in my bed
listening, to the sounds of this mass of a city
go about the beginnings of a truly ordinary day.
and I thought to myself
I have never heard the crickets sing, in woody forests
nor have I heard of a silence that, to hear my father say it, becomes so
encompassing that it overwhelms your senses
that you cannot help but take notice of it
so look, I am 17
I was born in one city
and brought up in another
and this morning I find myself awake in a third
where my grandparents complain we live too close to the road
and the cars make too much noise
but I know of nothing else, and I want nothing more.
so I lay in my bed on this normal morning
and think about how much
I love the sounds of this city
and how soothing they are to me.
then I close my eyes on this average morning
and let the warm hubbub blanket me
the bells on buses ringing
the exhausting pipe poisoning
the tyres, multiplied by friction, adding the variable of tarmac, spit out the sound
of resistance
these urban sounds – the most enthusiastic,
most comforting usher –
guide me to slip, gratefully, back into a settled slumber.