PILGRIM The train was taking its sweet sweet time crawling from Rahway to New York. It would lurch forward, slither a ways, then come to a stop again between green fields and urban blight. Sometimes unfinished construction would break up the monotony and drive the imagination to consider what would have been if not for the recent economic collapse. Then she sat in the seat across from me. A woman whose shape defied the modern norm. She was a woman who, from broad shoulders to wide hips, held an hourglass form. She was exotic. Traditionally African in feature with a full round face almost matched her hair in complexion and was accented with bee-stung lips, a broad nose, and two large almond-shaped eyes – all this giving her the image of some dark beautiful cat in hideous clothing. The train shuddered forward. The rocking motion wanting to lull me to slumber. A slumber I would have welcomed prior to Mama Wata coming aboard and forcing my will to climb from wariness to worship her visage. She crossed her legs and I pretended to be fascinated by the view outside her window. I can’t say what was outside the window. I was enamored by the fullness of the woman’s chubby limbs. A zaftig form we would never see on a magazine cover or on T.V. telling us to desire. In reality her form burned a desire in my soul that broke my heart knowing she would never be mine. Or could she? I closed my eyes to summon my courage. To first best insecurity and self-doubt. To find confidence. To soothe myself with the balms of an imagined future. To dream what I could be with her. “Now approaching Penn Station.” My eyes shot open. There was a bustle of humanity shuffling up and down the aisle disembarking. The woman was gone. I shoved my way through the crowd. Through the door and past the conductor. I was too afraid to wipe the sleep from my eyes as if, in that moment, I might once again sleep through a chance at her. She was gone. I was lost. A sinking ship called love falling under the waves of people of the New York subway. -- T. Joseph Lawrence is an exhausted thirty-something from Philadelphia who stays sane by writing about insane people and misanthropic cartoons drawn by his girlfriend, and eating a lot of halal.
Posted on: Fri, 18 Jul 2014 17:44:14 +0000
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015