On the Train to Elmstead Woods

In London
you can cry on a train
and nobody will ask you why.

The woman opposite
turns a page.

Someone opens a packet of crisps.

At the next stop
three people get off,
five people get on.

The doors close.

This is what the city offers:

Not kindness, exactly.

Something better.

The right to be devastated
without becoming an emergency.

I press my forehead
to the cold glass
and let the tunnels
take my reflection apart.

Nobody knows
who I loved.

Nobody knows
that he did not choose me.

Nobody knows
how many years
a person can spend
trying to understand
one absence.

We cross the river.

For a moment
there is sky.

Then brick.
Then darkness again.

The woman opposite
turns another page.

I am crying so hard now
I can taste the salt
at the corner of my mouth.

Nobody looks up.

And I love them for it.

I hate them for it.

The handsome man beside me
gets up to leave.

For a moment
I forget my grief.

Bye, handsome man.

Do not forget your groceries.

The doors close behind him.

I sigh.

Wipe my tears.

Check my reflection
in the black window.

Pretend to be normal.

At my stop
I step onto the platform.

Around me,
women are going somewhere.

Home.
To work.
To someone they love.
Away from someone
who did not love them enough.

We have all perfected
the small rituals of survival.

The straightening of a coat.

The wiping of mascara
from beneath an eye.

The lifting of the chin
before the doors open.

London carries us
without asking
where it hurts.

We step onto the platform.

We carry our grief
like designer handbags.

And walk

as if the whole bloody city

were our catwalk.