I bob my head to the thunder

Of my favorite

Track.

A boom, crash, snare, and chorus

To distract me from the 7 am metropolitan clammer.

W***es a hollerin’, mad-men screaming.

Wax

And wane.

Down the corroded steps,

My lungs expand and contract

As my soul gets lost in the subway’s 55 mph heartbeat.

I somberly wade along the worn platform

Fearing the boundary between Life

And Death.

“STAY BEHIND THE YELLOW LINE”

Or else; the music will en-

But the pit-pat reverberation of

my song is silenced by

a superior.

The shrieking flash of a grounded missile

before me, the thud of its open

metal Plutonian gates

And the longing, soul-piercing eyes on the other

side of the glass

command me to enter.

Inside of the beast’s hollow gut,

I stand shoulder-to-shoulder among

My brethren, adorned by Beats and Bose.

We all share the same eyes - though a different look -

empty stares.

Perhaps my siblings and I share the same melodies. I’ll never know.

Our fields of vision are nuclear war zones;

Intersection means

Chaos.

So, we play it safe. Don’t look around; don’t look at others; look at the ground.

Full volume.

But I’m numb to these ideas of abstinence. The pit-pat of the base inspires me.

The singer’s coarse, ear-piercing

ROAR

Shreds my eardrums. Yet it propels

my head - upwards.

And now I face

A ragged,

sleeping man,

Who pays no mind to my atomic stare, and I am the one

Who must look away.

His face,

Eyes closed,

Ears naked, unshielded,

unaware, aimless

lingers in my mind.

And so I drown myself

In my favorite artist’s screams, and I cling

to the sound because inside, I fear

That if the music

ends,

I, too, will be drowned

in the forever-

beat.