I trod the same tracks
Back and forth across a city that knows routine
But no repetition
My bland sameness
Lost
Amongst a sea of bland sameness
Always happening in the same general way
But never ever the same
In a city of millions
I lead a life of 1s
1 store
1 work
1 way to get there
1 place to stand and wait
In a city of infinity I am making a careful study of the finite
The seasons change their clothes around me
While I stand
Nearly stagnant
On the same street corner
Pondering yesterdays
At what point will I have more yesterday than tomorrows
And will I know that day
The city can buzz around you like a hive
But it can’t give you wings
You can be the only ant
In a city of bees
And nobody will know the difference
In a city where factors have permutations
There is so much acceptable vanilla
We trod the same tracks back and forth
Across a city that knows routine but no repetition
Or repetition but no routine
Repetitive routine.
We change ourselves within our lives
We change our lies within our lives
But we rarely change our lives within this life
Our lives change us
We tan
Fade
Grow
Whither
On the backs of our own lives
Our own
Only because we cling so tightly to them
Not that there need be anything so uniquely US about them
And yet
It is merely because we say it
That it makes us so
Our lives water for ourselves
Like a tongue not pressed firmly against the roof of one's mouth
We swallow our lives whole
So that we don’t have to taste them
There is no option beyond those first decisions
They poke irreparable holes in the cloth
Forever permitting the light to finds its way through
Even if it does nothing but
Point out very specific special parts of our darkness
The clouds illuminate our sameness more than our sun ever will
And it is for this that we hate them
They cover our streets with obvious sameness
Irreparable routine
In a city of millions our worst days speak loudest
They us whom we haven’t become
And what is left to be.
-RTB
