Two not quite strangers on the same underground train
hands grab either the pole or loop through the handgrip

It’s an unplanned hook-up, unexpected and not even one
previously fantasied about by either party
after all he might well have a bright future ahead but now he’s
washing dishes, and several years younger, so there’s not
much she would have found interesting until…

Another empty wintry night proves one too many and she’s still waiting
on a married man’s promise, this night is already warmed by the intoxication
of after-work drinks, an informal farewell, as she sets her sights on another blank chapter

The train, the moonlight, the coldness, the dead eyes of the commuters as they pass by,
the cries of animals, somehow it all feels detached from the world they both know
one populated by pressures and ambitions, offices, coffee shops, phone calls from relatives

A moment suspended in time, it doesn’t know of yesterday nor tomorrow nor anything else stretching further out into the void on either side
a unique moment in time exists in its own space carved out and separated from the external continuity of life
it exists as part of the whole but also in its own self-contained atmosphere
and in that there is a mysterious quality, a feeling that in that moment,
I didn’t have to be me, you didn’t have to be you,
we can each be any character we choose in any story we choose When it’s all said and done, the cycle will continue and life will march on
unmoved by whatever we may have to say about it

The world is too small, we hide the violence and lust in plain sight
the human life is too short, for moments wasted in a labyrinth of thought
there’s no progress made in these false epiphanies
the cheerful cynic has the secret to pain relief

Time crumbles away, a monument so brittle, sensitive like exposed flesh

It’s there somewhere on the horizon, that feeling you’re chasing, that peace you’re reaching for
lonely eyes grow accustomed to the colour of a false dawn
but it’s there, you feel it, the serenity your dreams and fantasies promise

Time crumbles away, broken down like old bones and joints, worn out like the elasticity of the skin

I don’t feel much like forgiving, I’m stubborn enough to ignore all sages and declare I want reparations
you do not feel sorry for a tyrant when they grow old and toothless, you remember the hurt they caused when they had the power to do so
defying all the sages in holding grudges tight
and yet it’s true that pain etches itself in the memory, an aging bully or abuser is not cute nor an object of sympathy

Time crumbles away, and the outer layers of your retreating ego dissolve, exposing a wounded spirit
now able to breathe, to grow, discover and spread wings, find a purpose
shedding your dead skin clears a path, lightens your burden

It’s somewhere out there, in the distance, outside of the animal mind illusions
somewhere, that glory, that greatness, that peace, that love
just beyond all the trappings of the organic life game
whether it’s zen, whether it’s biocentric, whether it’s religious, spiritual or transcendent and emotional, either way it’s freedom

Time crumbles away, it cannot be reconstructed from those broken shards, they will only form something new, there is no restoring that sticks, kid