You Don’t Run
By Karen Crawford
even though you’re late for class, you don’t run because in this neck of the woods running screams fear, so you walk briskly and with purpose, always acting like you know where you’re going even if you don’t and when you get to the subway, you never root around your bag for a token, you always, always have one in your pocket, because in this neck of the woods you keep your bag close, and when the train pulls into the 103rd street station you rush through the doors and grab a pole because the only seats available are next to a junkie nodding off and some homeless dude cursing at no one in particular, and you know to keep your eyes to yourself, because eye contact is a no-no, a WTF are you looking at kind of no-no, and in this neck of the woods someone’s always looking for a confrontation, and at the 86th street station a flurry of people pile in sandwiching you between 9 to 5ers heavy on AquaNet hairspray and Chaps cologne, and now you’re holding your bag, the pole and your breath when at 77th street you think you feel a man bumping behind you, and you think maybe it’s because the train is rattling down the tracks, and you think maybe it’s because he has nothing to hold onto, and you think maybe and maybe and maybe until somewhere past 68th street the train sputters to a stop, and the air conditioning fizzles out and the lights flicker off, and that’s when you feel him, like feel ‘it,’ feel him, and you’re hemmed in, frozen, shame pooling under your armpits even after the air comes back on and the train chugs into the 59th street station, and you inch forward as passengers get off and that’s when his hand cups your cheek and it’s not the one on your face, and it’s not a pinch but a full-on handful kind of GRAB, and you keep moving forward because you want nothing more than to rush off this train, but then your face flames and you think about that time when… and you think about that other time when… and you swing around and see an ivy league looking guy in a tailored blue suit with a gotcha smile and you don’t think—you just SHOVE, and he stumbles backwards with a what did you do that for?, and you scream next time keep your fucking hands to yourself, and in this neck of the woods, you’re glad that everyone is looking.
Karen Crawford is a writer, with Puerto Rican roots, who lives and writes in the City of Angels. Her work has been included in Tiny Sparks Everywhere: National Flash Fiction Day Anthology 2024, 100 Word Story, Okay Donkey, and Five South. You can find her on X @KarenCrawford_ and Bluesky @karenc.bsky.social.
Photograph by Several Seconds via a Creative Commons license.
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