Bastardization

we settle into our lonely together dozens of adrift souls drifting through the city on half-worn brake pads ears turned away from keening car neighbors they catterwaul louder than the notes playing hopscotch in the near-empty space between my drooping eyelids and the fading dye in my hair I inch them higher drown out someone hollering platitudes to the gods unclear if the voice echoes in the train or just in me most days the station smells of piss and cigarette ash but today it smells like mustard I imagine if I can just breathe deep enough I can expel the taste to the mouths of the hungry hordes crowding equally downtrodden more fortunates don’t buckle it’ll only postpone our inevitable sinking into quagmires of human filth and self-destruction along the crucifix of tracks dissecting our neighborhoods