I originally wrote this poem after reflecting on many train journeys that I took in recent times. Trains are depressing; so many sad-looking strangers making a commute to their sad-looking jobs – or in some cases, moving steadily away from a happy place. We all tend to see strangers in the street as background characters, so in combining those ideas I wanted to write about how there are many faces in our lives who will appear only to disappear in this way. The title was actually randomly generated before I wrote anything, which helped a great deal with choosing this theme!

I was ephemeral, a set-dressing extra
never to be seen again.
Background characters shared melancholy breath,
begrudgingly embracing our inevitable vanishing
while whisps of steam escaped us like memories of summer haze.
Cradled in momentary solace and rocked by rhythmic railroad,
we decorated the corners of a carriage untouched by limelight.

I know this post is a bit shorter than the last, I’ll be ready to post something more in-depth once I have finished reading House of Leaves – which I was inspired to read by the legendary MyHouse.wad ARG. Which is to say, it will be a while: that thing is large enough to kill someone falling from a one-story bedroom window at a staggering 700+ pages.

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I also made a Spotify playlist to encapsulate the very specific “vibe” [shudders at the horror of using that word] of the strange, melancholy atmosphere of a train at night: