How to Live Inside a Wire | Poetry | Aarya Patel

in the city, i learned how to breathe around metal: exhale the hum of fluorescent lights and choke on the buzz of the power lines.

i learned how to lean into the static of a radio half-tuned, let the song melt into my blood like a bitter sugar, sharp and stinging.

a stranger walked past me and i felt their pulse through the soles of my shoes, felt it travel up my legs, throbbed a rhythm into my bones, the way the subway does.

sometimes i imagine that stranger's heartbeat is still riding the railcars, bouncing from one end of the line to the other, forever.

someone told me the city has a memory.

i look up at the skyscrapers and wonder how many days they've tasted on their windows,

how many skin cells cling to the glass where people press their faces against the sky,

waiting to see if it still holds the shape of their mouths.

but listen: the moon here doesn't care for your wishes. it's a cold magnet,

pulling stray wires out of the night,

all the loose thoughts you tried to bury in pockets of silence.

one day, i swear, i heard a whisper that tasted like burnt copper— a reminder that nothing here belongs to us, not even our shadows, which cling to our backs like unpaid bills, the kind you hide underneath piles of junk mail.

the city is a machine and we are the loose bolts, the extra screws. but on certain nights, when the streetlight buzz

matches my heartbeat, i imagine i belong, that my veins might glow like power lines,

my fingers radiate like steel girders, until i, too, hum electric.