Wandering Vessel by abhishek raol

Wandering Vessel

By Abhishek Raol

Blue, short, fast, busy, biking, happy

Everyone doing everything going everywhere

Twelve screaming chimes tingle our ears

One tall brick time telling tower

I the middle of our world

Carefully conducting our lives

Telling us where to go and when

Yet each person is their own vessel,

Navigating a crowded port

Some sturdy and strong, others small and short

With its own captain and compass set

Every mast in the mass blowing in its own wind

In the middle of the busy sea

A ship with its compass closed and sails folded

Floating aimlessly, like a rubber duck

In an empty bathtub

Motionless while I walk

My sight lost in light, uncensored by clouds

The heat hitting my skin with the intensity

Of a million meteors falling out of the sun

Nobody seems to notice me noticing

Nobody seems to notice the cloud floating

The size of a small snowy island

Stranded in the vast ocean above

Little fish flap their wings and fly away

My neck bent and stuck like a straw

I finally look down to cool, hard, grey rock

Splitting my vision in two

The horizon blue sky touches the concrete horizon

Paper flutters across the ground like11

A disturbed flock of swans

Two wheels still spinning

But not as fast as my scattered thoughts

I push my face off the concrete

Two bikes, four backpacks and a lot of unhappy faces

I should have steered my ship.