The Straphangers

Like the sound of a thousand
prizefighting angels dying on canvas,
your work is not complete
until you're home
and safe from the stares of the streets.
In lonely rides with lonelier people do you confide
inside yourself the best ways to hide.
A one in a crowd of ones;
thinking allowed
but saying nothing.
Another bell rings as you slowly lose your wings
and society turns to you
another cheek you'd rather not see.
Maybe then your iPod gets louder
or your newspaper raised higher
than the insolent prick supporting a family
with crack terminology-laced homilies.
And you think you're lonely
but here you're never alone.
A myriad of prototypical strangers;
unique in heading to the same place fast.
Everyone else's nowhere that you think you know,
and your stop's already passed.
Every reason, season or treason
for miles gets lapped.
If you sing out, in your head,
you'll learn the words faster
to what you swear was something you never said.
Like "if I look at you the wrong way
I'll end up dead,
or worse, alive to explain myself poorly
for what was better left at unread into
by vicarious sex fiends,
businessmen and mothers of bad trends."
Clarity comes to those
who never get home on time
and have to leave a little of their life
behind
for the sake of being able
to ride the train on
anybody's dime.
With the sound of a dozen or so
prizefighting angels dying just to live on
in the background of your day-to-day,
"any-which-way-but-here, but-I'm-here" storyline,
it quickly is etched as how your life's defined.
You wouldn't have it any other way,
you and your crowd of one-amongst-ones.
Not so much, as long as you can know
you're someone amongst the otherwise
no ones.
For all you know (but keep inside),
they feel the same way too.