Ode to the Lady Stuck in the Escalator

Ode to the Lady Stuck in the Escalator
by liam hanninen
Could such a platter cooked for the finest eaters be thrown away, as this sour platter has been severed to you? No, no choice will be given to you or I to ask for it re-warmed from its unpleasant lukewarm state. By certain manners and orders hasn’t this machine bent itself to your will and comfort so many times before, and in such manners and orders so now has it forced you into this discomfort. Could no one have predicted that this may befall you as I watch. I watch your company, the security, and the manager convene to discuss your fate. In no way have I dismissed your survival, how could I, how couldn’t you.
And yet as pace met your plea people stare like I yet helpless as we are so we too feel the stinging pain that clamors up and into your very soul. On a familiar machine with unfamiliar pain you wait, complain.
Like so many before haven’t you explored what sense of loss one could experience if they become plagued with the purple feet, the lead poisoning, or the cold intentions wish upon them. Yet now you suffer a pain you never understood and now, Now! Only now are you forced to understand such adversity and find comfort in this place, in this dark place. With some skin pinched in you lower leg the sting rushes you with memories.
As children we played in fields, did you, lady stuck in the escalator? Your first love was your only love when you first loved. And as passion caughtupwithyou, did you know as so many have before you that
your first love would be your last?
Remember, remember that you left yourself in e v e r y o n e you’ve touched and in e v e r y t h i n g you did and this contemporary curse will not be what keeps you from tomorrow!
Still as you wave you flag of surrender, the faculties of your escape press that button. It may further pinch your lower leg that keeps you here or finally releases you. A graceful life gave you humble graces here as you spit in the way of the manager. Woh. How he did not know your discomfort. Who is the master at keeping the time before the new year? Who is a master at counting fish in a pond, river, lake, or ocean? Who is the master at singing in the forest as it too quietly hums a reminder of its own emptiness? Who is the master of reliving tension of lost skin between the shards of the moving stairs of an escalator? For you would not feel so alone if that person had come with you on this journey.
Counting still the seconds remaining even with the ignorance of when this all will come to an end. Like in a battle when one side will fight to the death and death is understood and known more than failure. So too will you today find no pleasure in counting no more, retreat welcomes you to a comfort that will unsettle your devices forever until memories feed you no more warmth and in leading you there you know you can not follow.