Seven O'Clock

I hate seven o'clock - every day, each day till the last stop, which seems especially far away even when you are just whizzing by those mid-twenties stations. The food vendors call out to me like some Japanese scented, mute old Madame in a rundown Parisian whorehouse, trying to appeal to the hunger somewhere deep in me. And then she brings out the shapely glass maidens, of all sizes and colors, dazzling like lunar jewels in the fading light that breathes life into my otherwise pretty sterile hunting grounds.

And it's a different maiden every day - a petite little cognac tonight, a large southern comfort tomorrow, a shy saaki bomb the day after, a smooth corona the following day, and sometimes it's a menage-a-trois, or even a menage-a-cinq on those painfully bright moonlit nights when your, no our memories dance on the glass of my present company, trying to compete for my attention, and always winning too easily. And instead of pushing the girls off the tracks like a true romantic, I remain and just be and supress these aphoristic ambitions.

But will I ever truly get you, or stop pretending that I don't? Your little train rides, your tastes, your smells at those same stations I have stopped and allowed to armwrestle my senses, or even the ones I didn't stop at, but you did - went out for a stroll through the chilly morning mist without me, leaving me cozy and fetal in the harshness of the train's thin blankets. My glass maidens have never taken the train. Frowned upon by men in dark coats and caps so that their shadows are confined to the seediness of French windows.

Don't tell me you seek out sleep like flower children out looking for moksha on an urban tour, in the same glass bosoms, only to enter your dream just to be with me. That would be ironic if it weren't so tragic. How long will we keep twisting one another in this parallel existence? How long till the glass maidens infiltrate? How long till the dreams shatter like shards of glass and cut through the reality? It probably hurts like hell when that happens. You see the pain written in the wrinkles of those much traveled passengers - huddled in those square, gray corners of the train, hugging the smooth curves of nubile, glass maidens, patiently waiting for the last station, too wary to jump for joy as the train comes out of some exceptionally long dark chilly tunnels. I guess they let you bring maidens when you can count more wrinkles than maidens, but what's the use, these maidens are great at math I hear.

But we have it, don't we? That random jump of ecstasy, that unexpected elated squeal. At least for now. You huddled up next to your window and me perched up high within the blanket. It's almost like being with one another, but not quite. Think of the possibilities of ecstasy and elation if we ever hold hands when the train leaves those sunless corridors of silence. We would have to move around. You wouldn't have the wind caressing your hair anymore and I would have to leave the warmth of my blanket, but could it be worth it, just for the sunkissed ecstasy and the elation?