The lungs of the city
We drop in, fallen, dropping from the sky. An aluminum body holding us in sunlight, falling with a daring grace through cloud cover and darkness. Onto another plane, smooth and polished to catch us, falling.
The airport has always been the lungs of the city. Breathing in and out, lunging people inward or expelling them out. Into the lungs, I move to the trains to carry me into the heart, the city is alive amidst the barren lull concrete. The city floats by, the train is silent. Th track cuts through the backyards the barrenness the bridges overlook forgotten suburbia, old decaying history. Culture is expelled everywhere you could look, stored upon year in the colours of it all. The line of houses staring into the sun, faceless drill marching every sunset.
Into a tunnel; the abyss. The stations live beneath the feet of the city. Stray light penetrates in the final hours of day changing the colours. Into the abyss again.
It howls at us, angry for he violation we bring with us, through and through but out of sight. The train can never be forgotten. At the outskirts is where I love it, above ground. She smells like peaches, her. Lips holding it there, her tongue darting around it, to touch every drop.
The car smells like peaches and everyone is wearing white earbuds, The Mark. The train is the equalizer, everyone rides the train, needs it, wants it to carry them. The cities with the trains have hearts to them, even if the tunnels bowl at us.
They always howl at me. A bittersweet welcoming call back to the street.
“You! You have returned! Hawooool”
In a dirty, rust trodden voice as the metal grinds the track.
The abyss cuts us off from the world above even if we choose to cut ourselves off from the people next to us. The drone of the howl tearing into the silence, we are all forced to listen.
It’s here, in the dark, that the city speaks to us, when we learn to listen.
