Make room for me
Contact.
You don’t even get room to breathe these days.
It’s wall to wall people where ever you go.
You look over your shoulder and you get somebody’s long nose butting in your face.
You try to shove it away, but twenty people shove back.
Last week, you twitched and nearly caused a riot.
You can’t imagine the carnage you cause with a sneeze.
Two weeks ago, you saw as poor man stumble on his way to Wall Street, EMTs collecting the crumbs left after the crowds trampled over his broken body.
Sometimes you hold your breath just for that extra micro inch of room.
But most days, you breathe in what other mouths breath out in an endless churning of polluted air.
Or you duck under the hall men with forests up their noses, feeling each nose hair scratch at the back of your neck as you ride the subway home.
Most days, you never know whose underarm deodorant failed, yours or the dozens of people on all sides of you.
Some days, you plot a terrorist attack, imagining yourself cutting off the hoses of all those you meet just to spite their face, then wonder if you’re crazy for taking pleasure in their pain.
The crowd isn’t always bad – especially on those few days when young women press against you, so tenderly, you dream of making love the rest of the day.
But on most trips, you get some fool with bad breath breathing in your face.
Those are the most dangerous moments for you, when everyone around you is trying to steal what little space you have, and you think you’re really snap and begin killing everybody you see.
It’s a pointless endeavor.
You know with some many people on every inch of earth, you might spend a life time slaughtering people and never make a dent.
So you put up with the noses, bad breath and BO for a few moments until the soft breasts press into your back.
And you hope you won’t have to wait for an eternity before it happens again.