The City Changes Overnight
April 2, 2006
You sleep when you can, braving the waking-up and forgetting the comfort of darkness. In the past I feared sleeping, closing my eyes to the world around me. Now I cannot seem to face the day, opening my eyes to the strangeness of light.
Opening my eyes, the city has changed overnight. The same people, asleep, walk the the streets - thinking its the same, “It looks the same,” they say but, fail to notice how cul-de-sacs has given way to a dead-end, graveyard of secrets. More than anything, the buildings take turn, playing tag, swallowing people and changing them before they could get out.
I peer into windows where lovers, with abandon, make love in a carnival of positions, not knowing the buildings, its digestive, elevator shafts will eat a dreamer’s longing for eternity - whole. Who is to say how lobbies and walkways take our freedoms away; noticing once a lovely young lady, virginal, enter a lobby, only to leave a few moments after, having aged and wilted before my very eyes.
You can leave the city any time. Go away for weeks, months, years or even a lifetime but the city never leaves you. You wake-up laughing, crying, even smelling the city - its fingers slowly caressing your hair, whispering, “Be patient child, I’ll fetch you soon enough.“
The City Changes Overnight
You sleep when you can, braving the waking-up and forgetting the comfort of darkness. In the past I feared sleeping, closing my eyes to the world around me. Now I cannot seem to face the day, opening my eyes to the strangeness of light.
Opening my eyes, the city has changed overnight. The same people, asleep, walk the the streets - thinking its the same, “It looks the same,” they say but, fail to notice how cul-de-sacs has given way to a dead-end, graveyard of secrets. More than anything, the buildings take turn, playing tag, swallowing people and changing them before they could get out.
I peer into windows where lovers, with abandon, make love in a carnival of positions, not knowing the buildings, its digestive, elevator shafts will eat a dreamer’s longing for eternity - whole. Who is to say how lobbies and walkways take our freedoms away; noticing once a lovely young lady, virginal, enter a lobby, only to leave a few moments after, having aged and wilted before my very eyes.
You can leave the city any time. Go away for weeks, months, years or even a lifetime but the city never leaves you. You wake-up laughing, crying, even smelling the city - its fingers slowly caressing your hair, whispering, “Be patient child, I’ll fetch you soon enough.“
