Howl, 2006

Sometimes, all it takes is a little reminder, a voice from your own past to speak up, to make Hope beat, a little stronger, in your heart.

Journal excerpt, September 2006:
I sat at B&N reading beat Poetry. And it all changed. I wanted (desperately) to do drugs and ramble about the streets of the East Village in a crazy rush (I sat down for coffee instead).
I wanted to be up all night with no goal in mind but being just where I was.
We went to a classical piano concert in Harlem (Harlem! Piano! Free!), which blew my mind, teared my eyes, tossed my soul, all the while full of delirious words rushing through me, beyond me, hitting my every nerve, my every vein like a jelly shot in the dark.
Pang
Pang
Pang
with Madness!

It isn't so difficult, my dear! You need only spend some time inside yourself to Remember your Soul's Sadness, and therein its ecstasy,
and once you've done that, the words are there.
The Word is there.

Ginsberg wrote of Union Square, just as I was sitting on it. Me! on Union Square with Ginsberg! I am in New York. I have arrived. Wooee.