True Color In The Subway

True color does not exist in the subway. The people don’t exist. Instead, blurred bodies blend into another until a person catches your eye and is suddenly juxtaposed against the blue or orange seat. She’s older than you but still young. Your eyes are drawn to her lips as they mouth words from the paper in front of her. Was she a student? A office worker? I would never know because she got off at the next stop. She existed in between the stops I noticed her.
We don’t take the train. We squeeze into a bubble that goes from A to B. The stops in between are our meditation places; the time: our infinity. The average commute time on the subway for a New Yorker is 54 minutes a day. According to the MTA, 4.3 million people take the subway everyday.

This is the first lesson a new person in New York should learn. That and you don’t need to accept the mixtapes given to you on the streets, no matter how fire they say it is. I first heard the term in high school, a little here and there at first before it became a vernacular. Some friends have told me it’s a Brooklyn thing though I’m not sure. The city takes things from everywhere and erases the history behind it. It’s brick means it’s cold out. Urban dictionary says it comes from the description of the wind hitting someone’s face as hard as bricks. I love the term. Not everyone knows what it means but for those who know, theres a connection between them only achieved by language. They belong to the same clan of people who know which streets are safe, which halal carts are good, and which mixtapes to avoid.

Manhattan strikes fear in me sometimes. I particularly hate 34th street Penn Station. It’s a mess of tourists, cars, and shopping bags a formula for a disastrous collision. The stores become ingredients in a soup of temptation and consumerism. D cups held up by a black bra laced with pink frills can be seen a block away on the Victoria’s Secret billboard. It’s my favorite

During that time, we went to a Burmese lawyer. Mother told her that I accidentally placed two sweaters and a jacket in my bag. She wanted to know exactly what happened. What really happened? Nothing, according to my parents. They told me to keep quiet about the incident. They said that people would judge me for what I did. I did keep quiet about it for several months. I absorbed the story within myself hoping to erase it. I hoped that it’d disappear like how things disappear from memory. I told her exactly what happened and she got to work protecting me. The court date was set on a Monday. I remember because I had brought along my Physics textbook to study for a test later that day. I had gotten a haircut because mother said it’d help me look more innocent and well kept. It would help me live a lie and become a person I was not. We waited in the courtroom for a good hour before one of my lawyer’s friend showed up as my representative. When I went up to the stand I stood there silently while my lawyer talked. He didn’t speak long though he never said that I really felt. I wanted to say, “Yeah I fucking did it but I don’t think I should be punished even more for it.” I thought the holding cell was enough. But the only words I said were “Yes, your honor.” It’s strange how we call judges the honor, as if the one coming before the judge has to humble themselves and absolved their own dignity and honor. I hoped that I’d learned from the