I come from a city
where you don’t have to work too hard to break a sweat.
Okay, jokes aside,
I come from
a city where,
depending on how you look at it,
hope is flattened when metal wheels clang on railroads,
stepped on, smashed by armies of sweat
or zips forward aboard the train
feeling the wind flying across its face,
snaking its way across corners of the city.
I come from streets
that elbow each other out
and create a grid
which in cramped cells
nestles ambition,
greed, and fear.
If you flip those cells over,
you might find
resilience scurrying back to its hiding place,
wounded but not dead,
blood oozing from the scratches on its back.
I come from the black grey dripping from clouds
and making its way through the city,
turning dull brown while it tries and fails
to drown suburbs.
I come from a city
where the bird’s eye view
might make people look like tadpoles,
a city whose schematic would resemble an atom with hyperactive electrons.
I come
from people
who look like unwinding clocks,
from people
who move like water being forced into unbounded columns
from people
who know their hearts will one day resonate with the sea.
NaPoWrimo 2017, Poem 9
Grains of thought 