Thanks for taking this train

So, here’s an exercise in borderline madness, but at times I find these needs difficult to ignore. You are a stranger on a train. I don’t know you – not your name, not where you come from, not the music on your iPod and not how you feel about me, though I suspect that “completely apathetic” isn’t all that far off. I do know (tie-dye hoodie) that you go to college at SUNY Geneseo, or perhaps you know someone who goes there.

This is probably the sort of thing that I should write as poetry. Unfortunately I REALLY SUCK at writing poetry, so prose is just going to have to do.

Anyway, I’m in love with you and your red bangs and your moccasins. Sorry, that’s just the way it goes. I can’t really look at you for any sustained period of time because a) I don’t want to be any more of a creep than this has already established me to be, and b) you woke up somewhere between Syracuse and Rome. I wonder what you’re up to in Schenectady. Honestly, I’m shocked that anyone else knew of the existence of a train station in Schenectady, so that was cool right off the bat.

There’s another girl who talked to me in the Rochester Amshak. Asked me to change her pennies for a dime so she could use the vending machine (mission accomplished!). She’s sitting behind you. Blond, pretty cute, didn’t seem like a moron from our brief conversation. I have to admit (and it shouldn’t offend you since you will never ever ever read this) that I was thinking more about her than you when the train started rolling. I wonder how feelings develop and change so quickly, and why my mind was suddenly ransacked by the image of you in profile, dozing off, head lazily flopping from one shoulder to the other.

We’re not that far from Amsterdam now. The café car is closing in a half hour. After that, we will get off at Schenectady and that will be it. You will almost immediately forget what I looked like and eventually I will forget what you looked like, too. Nevertheless, I felt that this moment deserved some form of documentation. I mean hell, if nothing else I expect it should be a pretty good read for the three or so people who follow my Tumblr.

So, thanks for taking this train from Rochester to Schenectady. Mercifully, I won’t pursue this attraction any further, because a) you go to school at SUNY Geneseo, b) you aren’t interested in me, and c) I am a huge wuss. Still, I at least wanted to publicize in some form the fact that I am happy because I got to sit across from you for these four otherwise tyrannically boring hours. That’s all.