I Will Conquer

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I looked into his eyes
And I saw nothing.
It was as though
He was incapable of
Human emotion,
He was empty,
Soulless……

I looked away,
Mama always said that
It was impolite to stare,
So I looked out the window
To his right, I watched
The blackness that
Inhabited the bowels
Of the city.

How did I get here?
I would ask myself
As I made my way to work.
Another worker
Surrounded by workers
On my way to a job
I hated but needed
To live in this city.

The electric eel
Stopped at my stop,
Regurgitating the masses
Who spewed up onto the streets
And melted into the towers
That tried to touch the skies.

As I rode on the elevator
To my office on the 42nd floor,
I brushed away my reservations
Like crumbs from my morning toast
And donned my mask
Of professional proficiency.

In the next 8-10 hours,
I will be a cog
On the forever grinding machine
That is Metropolis,
That is Gotham,
That is New York.

In time,
I will become a bigger cog,
A more important cog
And when that time comes,
I will celebrate the fact
That I conquered the city
That crushed so many souls,
I will conquer Gotham.