TTC Scenarios and Characters: Part Two

a broken guy who’s from an unknown land
rides the transit with us; strangers to one another
who must act accordingly as a common bond,
his words slur, his English is as broken as his soul,
but what fascinates me most is how he can
pronounce evil words,
his awful sentiments about women,
Cuba, white people, black people, Indian people,
the Chinese… you’re lucky enough not to
catch those,
even as I’m typing this all down now,
my spirit staggers, begging for help
from the Lord.

exploitative, the darkest, the most vile,
the most hateful, the most despicable–he
proclaims them all without inhibitions,
the rage shattering out of his mouth
feels like hell has just split open for us
all to be swallowed in,
for him to shout,
“White people! Freedom! Freedom!
Finished!”–mocking the race,
the only words I can write about
coming from his outrage is
“Finished! All finished!”–shouting
about how dominant races
are all finished!

meanwhile, the crowd stays silent;
some are probably catching on,
others listen to their headphones,
some still manage to read their books,
others close their eyes to doze off–
I shut mine to try to wander away
but he’s too aggressive and flamboyant
to be blotted out–so I keep my ears
open and pretend not to be a
nosy Canine patrol officer of TTC
who’s hungry for stories.

a contemptible display and disturbance
on a public transit and yet…
… no one cares.
No one cares.

We’re all broken.
The world is broken.
Life is broken.

But that’s just how it has always been.
For us all to finally get to the bottom of
it all–
Truths.