There’s something I’ve been wanting to say for the longest time: to be honest, it’s something that I think I’ve felt ever since the beginning; I never really knew how to tell you at first, but somehow, you’ve made it easier and easier as the years have gone by.

You might’ve guessed it by now, but I’m pretty angry. You’d think that after all of our days together, you’d be able to tell. But then again, I’d hate to think that you were self-aware of how much you frustrate me. And yes, you are the reason that I’m angry, but I don’t  think you know why.

It’s not the looping safety announcement you drone away at 6:15 in the morning. It’s not your morning trains that are always late. It’s not your abrupt delays that prevail through rain or shine. It’s not your station waiting rooms that end up locked and closed on  snowy winter nights. It’s not the Penn Station train delay kept on a constant watch while the Stony Brook train is quietly forgotten. It’s not the track work you expect me to know that makes me wait for a bus that doesn’t arrive.

It’s that you would ask me to put up with all of this and have the nerve to tell me that I don’t do enough.

You tell me through the absurd price of on-board tickets, punishing me for making a mad dash to meet you at the station and barely slipping through your doors in time, through the “thank you” at the end of an announcement of my suddenly-cancelled train as if I should be grateful, through the days when the attendants don’t stamp my tickets on my first transfer, only to ruin it by the time I reach my last stop. And above all, you tell me through the fare hike plaguing my commute and the money you leech from me without any intention of giving back.

I’m not writing to break up with you; I don’t know if I’m ready for that. I’m writing to you because, like I said, I’m angry. I was probably always angry and maybe you’ve known that for a while now, but I’ve finally decided to tell you because if our relationship is going to go anywhere, then you’ve got a lot of cleaning up to do.

I’d suggest starting with the bathrooms, but your personality seems far dirtier.

 

Your Devoted Prisoner,

Carlos Cadorniga

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