La Bella Y El Metro

The Beauty and The Subway

Between hell and heaven, galloping between darkness from the outskirts to the center of the center to the outskirts, the subway. With sleepy eyes crossing the dawn; she will return at midnight with a weary soul, the subway. Carrying up and down intimate strangers, sunrises and sunsets heading towards oblivion. Through its arteries rushes humanity, the nourishment that fattens the city. They glance sideways, touch from afar, smell each other, avoid, ignore, brush against each other; and in the rattling of the hypnotic wagon, each one invents the fate of their neighbor. The writer sees readers, the politician, prey; the priest sees sinners, and I see that girl from the subway. Pickpockets see relatives, bankers see debtors, landlords see tenants, and the cops, suspects in the subway. The general sees soldiers; bunions, the podiatrist; the midwife, the past; the gravedigger, the future. The beauty sees that they are watching her, and the ugly sees that he is not alone in this world that comes and goes. The beauty lets herself be seen while she looks at the nothingness passing by the window. Distant horizon of crystal rock, foreign and silent flower of my defeat. The ticket collector sees tickets; the tooth puller sees teeth, the butcher, steaks; and the hooker, clients in the subway. The misers see beggars, the beggars see misers; the gentlemen, ladies; the ladies, strange characters in the subway. The author sees characters, the cobbler sees feet; the hatter, heads; the hairdresser, toupees. The doctors see patients, the waiters, coffees; I only see her: the beauty, the beauty, the beauty that doesn't see me.