Yesterday, on the train, I saw all the ugliest parts of the cities from Berdoo to LA—the Route 66 cities luxuriating in their own decay. I saw the backs of sound walls all helpless against the graffiti, like a tender woman with a black eye someone tattooed over to shame her, permanently. I saw the trash glittering in the sunset—white against scrub and brown like pearls of waste and carelessness. I saw fire from a metal shop shooting up into the darkening sky. I turned my head. The fire turned my head.

I was jealous other cities had prettier stations than Berdoo does, that they had more healthy bike-riding young women and man, that their passengers stepped livelier, looked less like shopping cart ladies, sounded fresher, dressed fresher, came from places and were going to places where they didn’t know what it was like for us at all—we who dwell, and don’t work, and close our eyes, and listen for gunshots at the end of line.

-M.