I sit, as stuffed as a sardine, on a city bus.
I sink into the patchy, never-cleaned seats
that possess psychedelic patterns
like the ones I see when I close my eyes
a little too hard.
I pluck a fiery hair from the felt on my chair
that looks nothing like my own dirty-blonde locks.
I imagine it got lost there years ago
by a woman like me,
disposable and breaking,
and exhaling exhaustedly
in between the felt and her own feelings.
I wrap the red hair around my fingertips again and again
until the circulation cuts off, until I tease them into tingling.
I force the follicle up to my face
and start furiously flossing the hair between my teeth,
threading it through each one
as if it felt good—
someone else’s filth inside my own.
The bus driver swerves,
branches banging the outside of the tin.
The exterior vibrates
and I can feel myself hear the metallic echoes
as I remain alone in a sea of people.
And I proceed to thread her hair
up and down
and up and down
until my gums bleed,
but the string still remainsrubyred,
and I still remain helpless,
flailing on the bouncing bus
up and down
and up and down
and up and down
My presence changes nothing.