We stand on train platforms with broken-glass throats and nail-pierced palms and bellies full of rocks. We stand on train platforms and stare at stopped clocks and stare down empty tracks and secret-scan the faces of those who wait beside us. We wait for trains and we wait for the stranger who will see inside us and place their hand on our shoulder and say, “You are suffering from a great sadness.” We wait for the stranger who will hold us and heal us with fierce, cleansing embrace; the one who will crush the sadness from us right there on the train platform.
We wait for this stranger and we think-fear-KNOW that there is no such stranger. That we ourselves walk past mascara-cheeked girls and men who stare at their shoes. We walk past them and do not see them. We walk past them and we see them. We walk past them and see deep into them, we see their sadness like a black lake and we walk past them anyway, hauling our own sadnesses behind us like bulky suitcases.
Nicky Marsh
nicky_marsh@hotmail.com
Ask The Dust
John Fante
We wait for this stranger and we think-fear-KNOW that there is no such stranger. That we ourselves walk past mascara-cheeked girls and men who stare at their shoes. We walk past them and do not see them. We walk past them and we see them. We walk past them and see deep into them, we see their sadness like a black lake and we walk past them anyway, hauling our own sadnesses behind us like bulky suitcases.
Nicky Marsh
nicky_marsh@hotmail.com
Ask The Dust
John Fante