21

How many years have passed since that bright spring morning at the end of March, at the end of innocence.

(Do you remember how the air went out of you? How you retraced your steps to see what you could have changed, how you could have a saved a life intent on not being saved, how you could have caught a body determined to leap.)

It's been twenty-one years and I still think of you every time the ledge gets too close. Remember what it means to end a life, what it means for a life to end.

I saw in you the hope I had not dared wish for myself.

Wildfire leaves too much for the survivors to sort through, to carry, to breathe. You couldn't survive the flames, so you singed everyone in a mile-wide radius, left them scarred forever in your wake. Some days the only reason I live is to contain the smoke in my own lungs, and it's as good a reason as you can get.

I went home that day and made my loved ones promise that no matter what happened, they would never make it their end. I promised the same in return, and didn't know how much of my life I'd spend fighting to keep the promise. It was an awfully high building. It was a sunny day at the beginning of everything.  You changed my life and I will never get to tell you. 

 * * *

Mostly I remember what you left when you went away. Life is finite, you have but this one. Your family has but this one, your friends. You do what you will with it, of course. But it seems wisest just to live it, after all.

There may come a day, when you won't regret it, and that day is worth all the wait.

the Nothing Art

Sundays are best kept to themselves, puttering on their proverbial stove tops, left to their own devices to meander through an afternoon. The secret to getting things done is taking a step back and letting them happen of their own accord. The first cherry blossoms burst in Brooklyn, the first awkward sunburn appeared on my arms, all of the questions are still unanswered, but you got a little reprieve and this time you do not turn it down. 

It nearly kills you, every year. 

But every year, only nearly.

Alight

Eventually, the sunlight becomes so bright that it beats itself into your synapses, no matter how hard you clench your eyes. You try to remember why you wanted to die and find it difficult, just a trick of the lights, try to make meaning of disease and find nothing of substance. It was just illness, and now, perhaps, it is over. You escaped the allure of the reaper, and now you are forced to live with the consequences. 

There's a moment in the liminal space, just before you find your footing, where you feel a great emptiness, feel yourself returned to Stardust, could be weightless, could be nothing and all you can do is hold your breath and wait to find out. You are not anchored by hope, yet, not elevated by meaning.  

Have you come for me?

Not today.
Not yet.

A Seven Nation Army

You lock your door, prepare for a revelation, but sit instead with bubbles in your throat and question marks in your ears. This isn't the great insight you had been asking for. 

The world outside your door demands answers you cannot mold with your own two hands, the clay runs through your fingers like sand, you are afraid to take the first step because of all the others that demand to follow, this isn't the dream I was promised, America I have given you all and now I'm nothing. You used to believe the path would be found in poetry, but now you seem to have forgotten how to read. 

It occurs to me that I am America

 

I'm not sorry. 

Through the Days and

You lose your days and nights into lotus apathy, indifferent to the passing of time and the loss of your dreams. How long can you sit here paying rent without reaping the magic you were promised? There was a time I believed in the lightness of breath, a power in my step, a love in my words. I was so sure of it, and now I begin to question. Sometimes illness drags the life from my eyes, and each time I forget that I have been here before. I convince myself the days have been sunshine and daises up until this point and that now, somehow, I have lost it all. 

But the daffodils are sprouting along the Buttermilk Channel, this afternoon I went for a run along the East River and there's a manuscript on my desk that is getting better, we passed the equinox and you aren't dead yet. Something, something will come of this, your life isn't over yet. You are bleeding, yes, but scars can look like maps when they heal.

Resonance

The Bowery is sunshine and smiles, bright yellow daffodils beaming up at you as you pass, but you are busy beaming up at the sun in return, busy walking your beloved Manhattan streets with your eyes closed because they have never steered you wrong before, you've never been lost a day since you landed on this island, it's only been rain clouds in your vision, they confused you sometimes, but you were always grounded in your palace in the sky of New York. 

The technician pronounces your name right, says all you have to do is lie still and enjoy the break, and you nearly fall asleep in the noisy tunnel, wonder if there's a future in which we are free again. The Tuesday bartender is not the same as your Monday bartender, you do not know how to explain how your roots have seeped into that corner table and don't know how to leave. 

The truth is, New York, I don't know how to leave you. I don't know how to be torn from you again, to build a life in a world that isn't yours. He calls you a fascist for staying but he doesn't understand. This bar saw you through the end of the earth already, these streets carried you past your own destruction, this grid gave you love the kind you never thought could be for you. This country gave me a person I never dared believe I could be, 

what disrespect would it be
to turn my back on it
now?

Train

The unbearable weight of the world lies draped over your brow in the late morning, the cloud cover outside mimicking the sentiment. You cannot shake the feeling that everything is going terribly wrong. He says by staying where you are you're aligning with the fascists, and you cannot begin to take on what such a friendship does to your soul. 

By late afternoon you are desperate enough to ignore the ache in your knee and lace up your running shoes. The piers are gray and windy, only a handful of runners out, and you are glad for the peace. Each step unloads a burden, each quick breath fills you like a balloon. Manhattan lies across the water, colorless, quiet, awaiting your decisions. You wish it could tell you the future and make those decisions for you. 

The first clover leaves have sprouted in the park. 

It's about time I went searching for luck, again.