I HATE BOYLSTON STATION AND IT HATES ME

i’ve been growing fond of gradients: when things blend from one to the next, a change so gradual you don’t see it, a change in degrees, and then it’s all there, a sort of slow and silent movement; like the sunset growing later and sooner again, like the shift of seasons: one pale green sprout, one crocus threatening to bud, until suddenly the street’s all green and you didn’t notice; the way the tracks turn from south to west: you think you’d feel it, but it’s too circular, and then the sunset sun’s shining in your eyes—there must be some sort of angle here, but i wouldn’t know where it was.

a list of things that are discrete. numbers, when counting. accordingly also math, sometimes. words, which capture into categories, collapsing. people, once our bodies are pulled away from each other. the branches of the boston green line, before kenmore or copley, depending, before they merge into a molasses amalgamation of subway track. the steps at boylston station a few stops down, without an elevator that’ll take you in aching rattling rise from concrete lobby to concrete street. myself, at the bottom of the steps, crip body looking up and wishing for a slope.