The Wake Up

Gotta get down these moments of clarity
These pieces of me on the greasy cloth seats
The train riders half asleep
Despite electronic beeps and jerks of electricity
Thirty years of diseases and dirt
Left by countless soles rubbing the rug under their feet
Thrive with each minute of human humidity.

The sycophantic backs that circle
The sycophantic backs that stare
Swing their slow legs
Dressed in tidy threads
Business threads still absent of sweat
Shiny with iron marks
Dull in the daylight of the clouded windows

The gray sky turns and stays away
From the lengths of cars speeding towards the hill
The tunnel beckoning suggestively

I have ruminated about life
Over the click clack of tracks
Fluoresced until my eyes watered
Begging for sleep until my head waggled
Watching the line of people wander towards the leftover empty spaces
The fat, the thinning, the old, the aging
Staging their way through measured spans of time
Transitioning through the double-doors to the next car to find a seat
Forgetting their daily decay until they are reminded.

This morning I watch their groggy thoughts stumble and slip
After toothbrush automation
As a prelude to sunglasses half-sleep shaken open by the ride
Their demands are just keys to be pushed repeatedly
Pressed by my fingers in their delivery

Gotta get down these moments of clarity
These pieces of me
Each with a feeling and a memory
Needling nerve endings like a ringing phone
Each alone, but together a symphony.

Today I Threw You Away

In the papers and letters
The stacks of square notes you scrawled
The physics books, the math books,
The dated pamphlets in triplicate,
From the hard candies to the soft socks
I hauled you to the dumpster and threw you away.

Today I coughed what was left of your dust
And sneezed it out into your cave
The white walls your pre-grave
Silent from countless clicks and stares
Your folded chair cold
Despite the hours you played freecell

Today I threw out your old life
Your first wife, your first son
Paid one of your parking tickets
Chucked your debris:
The one-armed reading glasses
The 1945 yearbook
The broken ukulele

I squeezed you out
I wrung you out
I washed and wrapped you
And put you in a box.
I threw you away.

I crushed what was left of you,
Crumpled what was left
Smashed and folded and shredded
Your post partum remains.
I destroyed what was left of your chains,

And today
You are free to go.