[ the city. ]

[ the city. ]


they have their rolling city gaits
one stride for every two normal steps
and if you don't learn how to move
you get lost in the crowd --
waves of urban-modernistic dystopia;

on the subway they learn how to stand
so that all the twists and turns
of the underground labyrinth don't
pose such a tempered threat
because you can't depend on something
to hold onto - literally,
figuratively.

they practice their looks of flat
disinterest - because looking too interested
in anyone in this city
could land you in trouble;
anonymity is the road most taken
a smile on the street usually doesn't
result in one in return
suspicious looks for polite gestures.

they learn how to keep their eyes down
at night, don't meet anyone's gaze
it's generally safer that way
traveling through the concrete jungle
long after the urban sun has set;
walk with someone else, or talk on
the phone -- make sure someone always
knows where you are, and when you're
coming home.

they learn how to brush away the drunks,
the crack-cocaine philosophers
highschool and college kids out for
a night on the town
learn how to offhandedly pry them from
you, how to escape the death-trap that is
the city's more unruly inhabitants -
just to scratch the surface.

they have their closed lives
neighbours are not neighbours, they're
just people who happen to live beside you.

they learn to love in brief spurts
because nothing in the city lasts forever
and people move along the gradient
within our own little worlds.

they learn to live in this city, and
if they leave with nothing else
they'll leave with that same rolling city gait.