Wonderwall

Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York

I leave work, the ominous feeling building, at 2am engulfed in the darkness of Manhattan and nomads land, where the hotel resides. An unearthly light hangs dead above the skyline and the fetid stench of the black shadowy streets. I duck into the subway, a rat scurrying down a hole in the sidewalk beneath my feet.

I sit reading alone on the platform happy to have the time to myself tucked away beneath the city, the sounds of car horns making their way through the sewer grates. A far off rumble approaches and lights appear in the distance.

The train rattles, jerks then lurches to a halt as my bookmark falls to my feet in the fluorescent steel tube. The doors open to the 14th street Union Square station. The air is dank and stifling as I walk to catch the L train to Brooklyn. The stares of the people are deterring as I make my way to the lower level. I find a seat on the bench under a giant fan next to a passed out older Mexican man. A scraggly meth bent street performer sings and plays guitar to my left at the bottom of the stairs as an older black man at the end of the bench bangs his hand along to the rhythm of the song.

The song he's singing is foreign and familiar at the same time, working its way through my memory, pulling me from the lines in my book, "You should never apologize for being yourself.... People don't change. They try to but they can't. That's speaking from experience." "You're probably right. I'm not going to change." "I hope not." I close the book. I think of my past relationships. I think of Marie. I know this song - By now you should've realized what you got to do / I don't believe that anybody feels the way I do about you now / There are many things I'd like to say to you, but I don't know how / Because maybe, you're gonna be the one that saves me? / And after all, you're my wonderwall -

Love