A minute passed.
Seconds increment, and another minute passed.
The city, surely, has bigger opportunities, but it slowly it eats away your idle time.
Stuck waiting for ride and stuck waiting in traffic, it could take an hour or more.
Multiply that for each day in your lifetime, what a waste of time!
Time, that could have been shared with family or made into art and books.
Honking and brakes, the ramblings and garbled conversations in the background, or city lights and dark alleys, the things that pass in my senses every night.
I wished I could write, but I had to close my eyes and rest.
I wished to paint, but I had to rest and wait until I arrive home.
Is this the rest of my life?
Is this what I remember before I die?
Is this my life?
No, I won’t allow!
Someday, this will be just a memory.
Someday, I’ll have an hour or more to paint and write.
Someday, I’ll have an hour or more to go outside and watch the night sky, or sleep early.
Someday, I will.
Backpack and Late Nights
Watercolor on Paper
This was my pre-pandemic life, it was exhausting and health-threatening. I would wait for an hour or two to find a bus at night and if I don't, I would walk about a kilometer away to find another vehicle.
My lungs is drenched in late-night pollution, the streets are smoggy and the lonely lamppost warms the dusts in its orange lights.
If I'm lucky enough, I'd have a place to stand in the bus, occassionally swinging to and fro until enough people goes off, then I could sit.
This almost every commuters life. Everyday I sit by the dusty window, I ask myself, is this my life?
I'm not happy, I'm dead-tired.
I'd watch some of the lampposts die to welcome the nighy, roads get darker, cars moving slowly. Honking and rumbling like runners waiting to go.
Traffic at Night
Watercolor on Paper
I wonder if anyone thinks the same as I do, that they waste time, but without choice. It's a package to pay the rent and food, and to secure the future—but the future is slow and hazy.
Like the trembling cars, shaking and eager to reach speed limit, but cannot. These are all we are while stuck in traffic.
Can't lift a pen and write without writing garbled text or holding a phone without fear of getting snatched, who knows?
I come home exhausted, no longer have the strength to do hobbies at night—I crave for sleep, deep sleep.
Riiing! Another day, same routine. That was before. Maybe, I'm partly to be blamed with the pandemic, I hoped for a downtime and the pandemic came.
Right now, I have solitude. Right now, I have the luxury of time. This will be fine for me, until the pandemic eases, maybe tomorrow.
View original: Urban Series
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Daydream Series, A Painting of Dreams
In that dream, I saw swirls of storm in blue and black. Like storm clouds grueling, marching on the horizon—waiting to bring heavy downpour.
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About Me
@oniemaniego is a test engineer, but outside work, he experiments in the kitchen, writes poetry and fiction, paints his heart out, or toils under the hot sun.
 | Onie Maniego was born in Leyte, PH. He grew up in a rural area with a close-knit community and a simple lifestyle, he is often visiting his father's orchards during summer and weekends, which has a great impact on his works. |
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