Suburbitude

I lay on the grass and look at the leaves. Ah sunny sunny day. My friends and I have eaten out, and here we fall, sprawled amongst the urban dust and earthen crust. It's summer in the city, and without cares we watch tight tops and trousers cropped flop-flip by. The stifling air locks in the conversation, voices pour forth with the warm fizzy lager, glasses clink, too tired to think, their burnt out red faces store sun shades on frazzled hair. Amongst this all I recline and decline, I lay back in the park and watch day turn to dark. I greet the breeze and coolness with a concillatory sigh and let the thick air settle on me, cloaking me with calm. I close my eyes and try to press my face against warm flesh, if I concentrate hard enough I can cool myself off on her burning skin. We are one and apart, dazed and unscathed, yet I keep a card up my sleeve. Hope for better times is around the corner, hidden, slipped away like a snail in a shell. Tell no one. Later I strut through the tube line, my hair flows around me like Catherine Zeta-Jones and I couldn't be more worth it. I am the Contemporary Magician, I dazzle them with my Magic, I blow them away close-up, I astound them from onstage, they laugh, they cry, I soar and never die. Exit through the glass doors and I'm out on the street, a filtered beat slips my feet as the filtered light falls on the filtered street. As I trip home I swear repeatedly at the young prick manning the ticket barriers when he tries to make me swipe my oyster card, causing me to miss my train. I storm past, brushing him from my path, I tell him of his worthlessness, I say go fuck yourself, repeatedly, I board the train and laugh at his weakness. I am the untouchable, dwelling amongst the city-sickers, glowing with self-delusion; burning out. With the rest of us I lose myself, in essence.