From today's commute I can tell you about shoes. About battered flats, sneakers, ankle chains, a tiny tattoo nestled next to an Achilles tendon and meant to be hidden underneath socks when home from college on holiday breaks.

I can tell you about the bags that are resting on the subway floor. The flimsy plastic bags from the grocery, the deflated anemic gym bag, the take-away tote from the conference in Rochester, as cheap and unsubstantial as the event itself.

I can’t seem to be able to lift my head up, to look at the faces that belong to these shoes. I am afraid of their terrible truths, of their casual degradation, of their bleak blankness. I am not sure where this has come from. No, I know this is coming from me and I want it to stop. Here, play the Beastie Boys, run up the subway stairs, burst into the honk and hustle of midtown, and shake this sidewalk until its teeth come loose.