It strikes me that I’m worthless. It’s my realization. I can no longer live up to the standards, to the ideals, to the principles, which I have set and which others have set for me.

The North Side of Chicago is in a motion parallax, and I think I am going through a crisis of self on the elevated tracks.

I started at Howard, and I still have to go all the way to 95th/Dan Ryan, all the way to the end. I’m trapped.

Stop at Jarvis. Breathe in, breathe out. People in, people out.

What am I doing? I’m moving forward. I don’t want to be here, but I’m trapped here. I can’t escape—oh, God—I’m bound by the tracks, the turnstiles and the unfamiliar. I feel I don’t want to be here, moving here on these tracks. Oh, God. The world is moving forwards and backwards, and I don’t know which way I’m going. I don’t think I fit in here.

Morse. Breathe in, breathe out. People move in, people go out.

Tears well up, but I can’t cry. I have to contain. Here, on the elevated tracks moving south from Howard, I have to keep my composure so as not to disturb the passengers. It’s inappropriate to cry, but it’s the only way that I can hope to feel better. I don’t want to be here, but I have to be here. What is feeling better? I want to go home.

Loyola. A breath moves in, and people step out.

But I have to keep going, and I don’t want to. On these tracks, when I started, when I first started moving, it was a mistake. It was a mistake, and I should have just stayed away.

Granville. Move in, breathe out.

I still have a ways to go, and I feel miserable. All I can do is listen to the wheels churn on the steel tracks, absorb myself in the motion. I must shift my entire attention to the way the sound resonates movement, so to mute the dissatisfaction inside.

Meditate on the sounds. Breathe in. They’re all moving along the same line. Breathe out.

Thorndale. Bryn Mawr. Berwyn. Argyle. Lawrence. Wilson. Sheridan. Addison. Belmont. Passengers step in while others step out. Fullerton. North/Clybourn. Clark/Division. Chicago. Grand. Lake. Monroe. Jackson. Harrison. Passengers breathe in, and passengers breathe out. Roosevelt. Cermak-Chinatown. Sox-35th. 47th. Garfield. 63rd. 69th. 79th. 87th.

Moving in parallax, moving with sound, moving, stuck here, breaking down.