Suburbs

Keith Irwin

It’s three quarters past midnight, and I can hear the crickets chirping and the fan blowing and the silence of these suburbs, and I sit here wondering of what might have been and what could never be. This is, I think, the purpose of the suburbs. A comfortable place to wonder, to reminisce, to let the world be and concern yourself with yourself, you as you are, you as you could be, you as you wish to be, to plot and plan and sit.

When I was immobile, idle, unemployed in the suburbs, I never once felt out of place or lost. They do not ever post maps in the suburbs because you do not need to know where you are or where you are going. You will not see a dot which says “you are here” in the suburbs because we know already where we are. We are in the suburbs. I am told that they begin and end and that once they began but no one claims that they will end.

I want to say that the suburbs are a horror, an abomination carved of glass and asphault, steel, wood, and brick, but I can’t because they aren’t. The suburbs are a warm fuzzy blanket, big and soft and fluffy and comforting. But do not mistake comfort for happiness, and certainly don’t mistake it for freedom for that fuzzy blanket can wrap you up and smother you. And we all know that, like a thousand other people every day, you can get lost in the suburbs.