Y-Town or Hot Air Balloon Central

The train that grinds past my apartment here roars four times, just like at camp. There's a comfort in that, one that I've only found in melted street tar under summer sun, community bathrooms and car soap. Two longs, one short, one long. Nights like these, I open my windows at about 10, just as the temperature drops below 75. As I lay here surrounded by pillows and basking in the glow my LED screen, I'm trying (fruitlessly) to decipher the chorus of insects below my window. Last school year, the seventh floor didn't lend itself to insect lullaby, nor did the constant hum of cars bellowing down 17th Street. I prefer the crickets. I prefer the cicadas. I prefer the dense cacophony slowly melding into what feels like silence, only purer.