Cities Are Snares

Cities are snares for potential. It’s a wonder they don’t collapse under the weight of all that wasted energy, or snarl themselves into immobility.

Picture all those missed encounters, lost opportunities, wasted moments, bound around and tangled between the people like thick and heavy black strands, sticky spider webbing that grows denser and denser with each glance the wrong way, each misplaced word, each hesitation and retreat. 

That person, there, that best friend or partner who might have been, will walk on, never knowing you exist. Their vision slowly occluded by the mass of habit and anomie, until there is only tomorrow, which will be much like today.

And I.

I peer down at my phone, earphones in my ears. Happy little insect, tangled in the web.