by Kate McCane from Short Stuff Stories
A poem about city life.
I would like to write
one of those sweeping
beautiful descriptions
of empty landscapes
where you can go
miles and miles
and never see another person
Where the cold emptiness
is still somehow beautiful
and the loneliness
feels like a prayer
But in truth
I am a city girl.
The furthest I can get
from another person is the
distance from one apartment
to another.
My moments of solitude
are snatched, secretly,
late at night in
empty train carriages,
after the shows have let out
before the drunks
have stopped drinking.
My gorgeous sunsets
are framed by the
space between buildings;
they highlight smoke stacks,
steeples, fluorescent adverts.
Sirens fill my nights
and the stars are
pale and insubstantial
against the glow of orange streetlights.
And yet there is beauty here
in this teeming mass of strangers
pressed together into an impossibly
small space.
There is a thrill of connection
in looking into brightly lit
office windows to see the workers
working late
and a strange camaraderie
in the shared detachment
found in people stuck
in long lines in grocery stores.
It is not empty here
and I am not alone,
but this landscape is
still
beautiful.
Kate is an Australian living in Berlin. She can be found at Short Stuff Stories. She publishes additional material for her supporters on Patreon.