Bus Stop

Moonlight soaks my resting bitch face as I sleep trapped in a series of restless dreamscapes. A missed ride, a miscommunication, a miscreant watching with feigned detachment from a street bench covered in fading graffiti. A faceless clock that shifts it's face away as I crane my neck in search of time. Moving mouths and piercing high paced string instruments from a mariachi band with empty eyes playing beneath the flickering lights of a warehouse filled with rotting fruit. Pregnant women swarmed by skeletal children watch with woeful eyes devoid of presence or possibly, humanity. The road plunges into darkness steps beyond the relative safety of the horde of ambivalent strangers, a payphone with no phone or buttons leans slanted in the shadows. A recessed counter high above contains a troop of cooks taking orders and churning out plates heaped with steaming piles of grains and meat to random characters who thanklessly shovel their sustenance down before discarding their plates and foil carelessly atop an overflow of garbage spilling like vomit from a filth encrusted trash bin. I pace from the door, to the bench, unsure of how to leave, and feel eyes dissecting each step. I'm almost sure they can hear my thoughts pounding in my heart, see my fear pulsing from my skin, and that they are communicating their most basic needs amongst themselves as my inquisitive eyes silently plea for a drop of compassion. The veil is pierced as starshine penetrates the thin skin of my eyelids and the stark clarity of morning unfolds as I blink away the shadows lingering around the edges of my soul and wait for the relief which is to awaken. I shudder at the uncertainty of the moment between perspectives and struggle to escape the residual fog that whispers a promise to meet again. Defiantly I embrace the moment and sit up abruptly, focusing outward on the safety of physical existence I convince myself, at least for the moment, that this is reality, allowing myself to believe my own lies if only for the sake of sanity.