Needle and Black Thread 2.07

*About a year old this one...It's nice to capture rage in such a way....*

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The spout of a bitch makes her way through the soft, fleshy lining of my stomach as I board the train. When you are porous, you feel the chatter, the slimy wake and the meaningless looks of your fellow commuters even more. Not a way to start the day. The train decides to enter the 4th circle. The Avaricious and Prodigals. No relevance found, just the wait. Opposites bumping, the excuse of a winter coat and bulky bag makes angry waves, pushing big rocks at each other's temperament, hoping that the other person takes their dirty glove off and smacks the shit from your eyes. Tripping over babies, yelling and knocking footsteps – the manic depressives, obsessive compulsives and passive aggressives stewed while the leftovers baked in their down coat incubators, safe from each other and themselves.

No sense, and no guardian. No one in this town ever wants to be the hero, or the leader. They all look at each other for orders; they all look at me. I look down at the glow of the ipod and shut my eyes as angrily as possible, remnants of Tourettes climbing up my blood stream, in my muscles. Twitchy shouts mingle with the Nick Cave in my ear of "Whore. Bitch. Fuckface". I think I actually wished for a woman to be savagely raped by a herd of angry cons. There's never any guilt following that. Just a calm, like muscle relaxants hitting the sweet spot. Then the ridiculous hypocrisy that I'm somehow different and that I am "above it all". But being above it all is easier when you're meditating and not as easy when you're trapped in a moving electric box that's hardly moving at all. I think the guy driving is stopping and starting for his own twisted, perverse pleasure. Getting his kicks before he has to see his nagging wife tonight.

Mornings cannot start this way. They certainly cannot continue well. It's not the nature of the subway. I've been here before- after meditation, yes, but all the lights seemed aglow, everyone's face forced my pull to anti-socialism to fail wildly, as I kept the light of an open door in my gaze. Not Sun Myung Moon gaze or anything quite that extreme. But, something even more far-reaching. I couldn't remember that moment on this morning if I pulled it out of an open wound. We were finally one stop away. I was later than usual. I'd be going in the side door. Then, it happened. The servant of God, or so he seemed, arrived.

I had an experience about 4 years ago going home on the subway- delayed, stuck, one of the worst. This man appeared then. I understand there are a lot of Jamaicans in and around here, talking about being born again and the fires of hell, but this was the Same guy. Back then, my walkman had lost battery power in an overly crowded car, forcing me to listen to his sermon. This time, it was morning, and he arrived on my car in a whip of silence. I knew his voice quicker than the voices I loved and knew to their core. In an instant, I knew it.

Obviously, this wasn't an awful experience. I knew it even now. I stare every day at the mismatched, salvation army threads and bad haircuts of the people who rode the train to jobs far worse than mine, of women with cheap dye jobs and silver roots showing through layering tones of denial, drug store style. Those things don't mean much in the end, but most people in the room will never ever know the feeling of wanting something better, and what's worse, they don't expect it nor feel themselves worthy of it. I think they should take a knife, a cheap one if need be, and plunge it headlong into the ravenous cavern of the guy keeping them from their family's health, good night's sleep and dream of tomorrow being better than today. The ace is always hidden, while the sharpened ends of the playing cards cut their throats with invisible flair. And, all of them...I could never truly be angry at them. All of them I loved and hoped for them to get what they couldn't have.

These thoughts were far from my empty, tired head on said morning. I knew he'd be talking for about 2 minutes tops but it was the kind of rageful transport moment where no logic was to be found - every second that the doors didn't close was another second I screamed at them from inside. Fire and Brimstone before 9am (well, 9:30)— this is not a requirement of society nor ever a good idea. I would love to be walking back down my street now, in the dark, going home to my brooklyn bullfighters and looking up at the rabbit in the moon, boxing some chump coming around the corner at him from the stars. Can't dream of the finish line when you haven't even started.

By the time I saw the blackness outside the subway car window reflecting my angry, beating chest morph into the bleak colors of the 7th avenue station, I smiled and yelled to myself "I would suck the devil's cock just to shut your mouth you Fuck!" And I felt good. Like a lady. I let the tunneling rage flow from me slow as a snail and exited without missing a moment. I blame cardiology for this: the doctors told my mother just before I was born that my heartbeat had the pattern of a male. I'll look at the black shining sky tonight and find that bunny fighting in his silly big gloves. I felt the wind coming down from the street above on my face. I always knew I had a man's heart.