MTA,
I thought we might be lovers.
I liked the cool blue of the L train, the drone of the man who tells me not to block the doors and to report unwanted sexual conduct (is wanted sexual conduct on the train really any better?)
But now I've realized, this is an abusive relationship. You smack me around. You reroute me to places I don't want to go. You arbitrarily take trains away, just to remind me that you can. Everything is a power play with you, MTA.
You trap me in a crowded fluorescent box under the East River for twenty, thirty minutes at a time. (That's straight up some David Blaine shit, MTA.) You make me ride a jerky shuttle bus from Lorimer St to Morgan Ave when I have to go to work on the weekends.
And the worst part, MTA, isn't how you treat me. It's how you know as well as I do that I have no choice. I'm an enabler. I will stay with you. I will keep giving you money so you can pay the bills.
And when I'm stuck between First Ave and Bedford, I will have no idea where I am or when I'll get moving again, and I will realize I am powerless to control you. You are going to make your trains go wherever and whenever you want them to, and I will ride them and feel paralyzed and helpless, and if you keep me there long enough, I will throw myself, prostrate, at your giant steel feet and beg you to please, please take me where I want to go.
And you will smile, knowing that once again your dominance in this relationship has been reaffirmed, and take me there. You cruel tease.