peter parker watches the world move around him.
he always has, ever since he was 7 and sitting in a precinct with words falling flat on his tongue and parents ready to be buried 6 feet under.
he is used to the world moving without him.
he’s used to seeing the lady walk her dog every tuesday morning at 9am like clockwork. used to the guy with a tan coat, ordering a small hot chocolate and muffin to go at the side cafe down the street. he’s used to the group of children, one with blonde hair, two with red, who walk to the bus stop everyday at 6pm.
he used to the quiet sounds of birds resting in the trees outside his window, to the way the world shakes when the trains pass by, how the sky turns from blue, to pink, to black, and back to blue again.
sometimes he wonders what the world does, that he can’t see or hear. wonders what the lady’s dog name is, wonders if the man orders the muffin for a lover, wonders where the children go so late into the evening.
wonders if the birds have another place to rest, wonders where the trains next stop is, wonders if the colors of the sky look different on the other side of the world.
peter parker wonders what the world looks like from someone else’s eyes.
the sound around him is always dull, as if his ears are filled with water and he can never seem to drain them out. like the tv is turned too low and he can’t find the remote. muted and grey tinted.
he wonders if the world is filled with more colors to someone else. wonders if they can hear the universe breathing, or the earth spinning. wonders if they can hear their own heartbeat and know they’re real.
he wonders if the city can be heard from miles away, when he can’t hear it right from the center.
wonders if the honks of the taxis and the laughter of the children reach all the way to the stars over head. wonders if the city lights can be seen from two towns over, wonders if a boy like him is looking out the window and seeing what peter cant.
the world sometimes spins in slow motion and his heart feels like it is no longer there, and the people around him talk and yell, smile and cry, feel and live, while peter himself sits and stares.
these people walk past him, their eyes don’t trail after him, they don’t sneak down to his shoes, and pass over his curly hair once, or twice. they don’t spare him a glance, as if he’s just a part of the undertones of a painting nobody stops to look at.
these people don’t know the pain. they don’t see the blood on the streets, the blood on his hands. they don’t see the color red straining against his soul. they don’t see the tear tracks on his cheeks, nor the red rimmed eyes of the teenagers that sit in other corners, feeling the same way he does.
they don’t know about the screams at night, the ones the moon has to bare, the ones that get let out into the darkness, afraid if the world hears them during the day they’d be ridiculed for feeling.
they don’t know about the cries, the sobs, the broken promises and bittersweet lies that rush past lips and shaking hands in alley ways and abandoned churches. looking for faith in something, anything, to make them live another day.
they don’t know of the children that crawl their way through the night, the ones with bruises knuckles and blood stained shirts. the ones with hands linked to whatever trust they’d find in their souls.
they didn’t know of the pure agony that reeled through the city, painting the streets in green and brown, rushing through peoples veins and turning them bitter and broken. the people who could use hope, but never stick around long enough to get it.
they don’t know of the begs, of people who are running from something they can’t. who are hiding from the things buried so deep inside of them they’ll never be able to get rid of it. the people who come to the city in hopes of the busy nature being able to drown out their thoughts, only to be left with the knowledge that they only got louder.
they don’t know of the people just desperately looking for a home, a place to belong. hoping to find it on the streets of a broken city, filled with the same type of broken they had been running from.
they don’t know of the people just trying to live.
because peter is a just a statue in a museum filled with paintings.
peter watches the world move along around him.
