Elive (Edit I Haven't)

Jordan Kaye

In and out walk the people,
scurrying from the El platform,
Faces brandished without hesitation.

It’s fun to pretend that you’ve seen
these beings thousands of times,
peering into each commuter’s, each straggler’s
Open book kind of existence.

I’ve been there, oh,
even if in my midday musings.
I think I can feel the tightness
that makes hurt- wrinkles, that
explains the appeal of solemn slumber.

Try and frame the paper so it
becomes the print wall
of the mind’s silly fortress-
a classified ad back hand
stings silence into whom, we hope,
are the spectators.

Fallen back to a typical deduction,
a reduction of my now lost Big breath-
When you look around and it’s hard
to imagine a wall between you,
and it- the screeching, murmuring
accumulated from the wheels and wise men.

Am I the only one still conditioned to
hide inside when from outside,
people pour, pour, pour-
vegetable soup demographic.

De- mo-gra-phic-cracy,
The 1 train’s a salad bowl?
Perhaps pre-steamed, pre-boiled,
all and all and everything
in one, closed container.

mimicking, aren’t we,
the peacock’s innate treasure-
split peacock soup in a melt-ing pot.
Spoons for our own taste (s)
that could be used to,
Smack some Big breath sense
into every little worry withered wo (_man_).

Big breath air.
SMACK SOME SENSE INTO MYSELF.
UNdermine the
colors, fit snugly in
a crayon box world of different-iation.