Everything Addi > Creative Writing

Walt Whitman appeared in my dream the other night. I was cocooned in polka dot quilts, a poster of Mick Jagger hovering over my headboard, and wisps of breeze through the cracked window ushering in the metaphysical. And there he was. Straw hat and that silver beard rivaling Santa’s. Walt spoke to me in garbled dream language, and yet he staked his place as my too-aware-for-his-own-good bodyguard. He does not protect me from bullets or tin soup can edges, but rather he cradles my brain and shelters aortas and atria. I sometimes wonder what could’ve happened if Whitman never reared his beard into my conscience. What might’ve been, but never was. Every morning, I grab a glass from the cabinet above the microwave. Then I walk over to the sink to fill my cup with water. I feel the strain in my right fingertips, and the possibility of my right hand giving out flashes in front of me; the glass smashed on the hardwood floor, rushing to the hall closet to fetch the broom. The scraped up lacerated feet and the mental caution tape around the shattering scene. This could happen, but never does.
My mother tells me I am good at math and science. So I go to a math and science school. I hate it. Her words were bullshit; Whitman reprimands me for listening to her. Every morning my father must rattle me out of the most fabulous slumber. He is God dragging Eve away from Eden. I have never read the Bible, but Milton gives a good enough summary. I smother my face in my mushy pillow, and dad rattles me more. I gulp my water (in an unbroken glass), and sip my coffee. Brush bristles scrape my scalp, suds of mint toothpaste burn my gums, fingertips claw single-use contact lenses out of their salty solution pool. I coat my lashes in dark goop, and it stains under my waterline, making my eyes look big and buggy. Drugstore makeup masks my Japanese makeup; I have to set my look apart from the Asian majority at school. Not even Whitman can untangle such a twisted string of neurons who all ponder racial identity. How can strands of DNA create such a flawless fusion of races? Whitman always tells me that I am a victim of my own racial prejudices. He then reminds me, a hint of sarcasm in his voice, that the mixed race “woe is me” thought process has already been penned. Trevor Noah beat me to it. I roll my eyes at Whitman, and then I carry on.
I run to the A train in pants that don’t fit, lungs burning and the too-big waistline of my jeans revealing to the world my pink underwear. Businessmen stare, construction workers stare. Perhaps my track performance is causing a spectacle, or maybe it is the lace underpants. I tumble down the subway entrance steps, I am a Greek girl making my way to Hades. Wait wait waiting for the train, the woman standing next to me on the platform peers into the tunnel. She is wondering when it will pull into the station. I do not understand this, it’s not like one can will a hunk of metal into existence by staring at a rat packed abyss.
Today I am taking the 7:33 A train so I can talk with my English teacher about poetry– Ginsberg probably. Ginsberg spent time with Whitman too. They roamed the aisles of a supermarket in California together. I usually take the 7:52 A train, though. The crowd is much different from the 7:33; today for the first time I see a man who looks like a replica of himself. He has a stern resting expression and cool irises of glass. His skin is impeccable, pores invisible to the naked gaze. But other than replica-man, today's ride is the same as always. Orange-yellow seats reflecting the stale, flickering, artificial lights from above. A mother with a baby strapped to her back selling candy bars that nobody ever buys, a grad student in scrubs clutching her coffee- she didn’t sleep last night. Sometimes I wonder if she’s going to assist an open heart surgery once she gets off the train- will her hands be all shaky? Will she fail at connecting some sort of valve but tell the patient's family that he “just didn’t make it?” The grad student takes another gulp of coffee- I study her hand that shakes ever so slightly (I bet ten dollars that the patient won’t make it). She smooths her scrubs and rests her head against the window. There is really no use in gazing out the A train window. It is so dark you can barely make out the peeling graffiti. I usually just stare at my reflection in the glass (I like to look at myself). And as I rub vaseline on my lips with my thumb in the makeshift mirror, the C train comes barreling onto the parallel path, interrupting my view of myself (rude). It illuminates the decaying underground tunnel, and I think about how fascinating it is that two trains can run a million miles per hour next to each other, and one can still make eye contact with the person riding the other train. I am glad to have company in this wonderful, foul smelling, bone rattling experience of occupying a barreling ancient steel contraption. I have replica-man, heart transplant girl, and the neighboring blue train. Walt Whitman sits near me too, beard wavering in the gust of subway air conditioning. He is always silent on the train. I think it is because we are so far underground, so nobody can hear his barbaric yawp.
One day I will calculate how much of my life I have spent on the train. Twice a day for three years, thirty minutes per ride. So many hours of Billie Holiday and New York Times crosswords. Someone could cure cancer in all that time. What makes something a cure, though? The evil replicating cells in my mother’s right chest were carved out with a scalpel and plopped on a tray. Is that not a cure? Mom lay in bed in quilts for months while the cancer lay in some toxic wasteland. Whitman never lies anywhere, he stands conducting the orchestra of my subconscious while I snore. He hovers over on the train, assisting me with my daily crossword. He stands trimming his beard in my bathroom mirror, the clippings sprouting into leaves of grass.