This Wasn’t the Moment I Thought I’d Miss

Yet I do — a poem

Jostled about, I rushed on through those doors half asleep, half-listening to music, 2% remembering that I’d meant to review my notes.

I’d sit there with my prized seat squished between two other oversized coats with my brick-of-a-smartphone, reviewing lecture slides on a screen with the size of a business card.

I miss those days like never before.

I never thought I would.

There was a routine to being around others absent from my life now, perhaps forever in the current climate.

There was a mandatory period of not doing where I simply existed to transition from one place to the next, an hour-long window to just move and listen to the podcasts that I so loved.

I never thought I’d missed those days, after years of complaining about how truly horrendous my commute was.

But I do.

And so I learned to savor every moment, even the ones where I’m overwhelmed by the stink of the train, the sounds of screeching of a seldom-oiled machine, the uncomfortable falling into another human being as the only structural support against falling over on a moving train.

Thank you to Warren Brown for the prompt: sitting on the train to get to work! I took a twist and made it about school as I’ve been in school for (moment of counting fingers) 22 years. That’s a whole university student’s life, in education.

Hi, I’m Lucy Dan 蛋小姐 (she/her/她) and another thing I miss (and almost mourn) is that I’ve actually written quite a number of poems on this subway train. At that time, though Medium existed, I didn’t realize it did and just saved my poems on a hard drive somewhere. Unfortunately, a number of those poems were lost to a faulty hard drive, except for “Snowflakes”, which I’d loved so much as a poem that I’d written down in a notebook. Ah, technology.

Most days, you can find me trying to write poetry based on the poetry prompts that YOU give me here! What’s next? Hop down this reading rabbit hole or support this piece by Punch Drunk Cola!