DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.

Up and at ‘Em

 

 

When I awake

 

The details of my dreams of aimlessly walking down streets in the dark of night

 

are erased from my memory in seconds.

 

Not ready to get up, I slam down on the alarm clock

 

to squash a bug three times bigger than my hand

 

that despite my strength mysteriously keeps its shape.

 

 

I lie in a limbo between optimism and pessimism,

 

and the thought of how this routine gets the best of me every morning

 

circles above me like a halo, suspended over my head.

 

 

Sunlight gradually streaks through the blinds

 

and stretches farther and farther across the carpet.

 

I throw open my blanket to the floor

 

and stumble in the daybreak, over books, stuffed animals, and socks, to my

 

closet.

 

I pick a sweater, some pants, and brush my teeth in my blue-tiled bathroom.

 

I throw my body weight into the front door,

 

a habit I’ve developed on the way to school,

 

and set foot outside.

 

 

My ghost walks with me

 

in the glimmering mirrors of windows

 

of buildings I pass on my way to the purple line. 

 

She gladly carries the same backpack, listens to the same headphones,

 

smiles the same smile.

 

But I must say goodbye when the windows end

 

and the rails begin.

 

 

Treading up the multitude of stairs always takes all of me,

 

my heart, my lungs, my feet,

 

and the understanding that the climbing

 

of the fierce stairs will soon be done.

 

I lean forward with my book bag asleep on my back,

 

a hiker about to reach a peak,

 

once I get to that last step.

 

 

There are people standing idle and sitting on benches

 

preoccupied with IPods or IPhones,

 

who forget what it is like to dissolve with the hum and jostle of the train.

 

I am one of these people.

 

 

101.1 FM penetrates my ears as each stop glides by me,

 

like a slideshow:

 

Sheridan and its curving rails, Addison with its Cubs’ rooftop restaurants,

 

Becks’ bookstore at the Wilson stop,

 

graffiti signs and wooden porches and stairwells defining urbanity.

 

When I reach my stop,

 

I make my way through a maze of people,

 

a chess  game made suddenly real,

 

and I step foot on the Fullerton platform.

 

I wonder

 

if anyone has had a morning like mine;

 

if I am alone in the cosmos of school mornings.

 

 

 

 

DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.