On Pride

Tan lines deepen, are altered. Steps lose their speed in the incessant rivers of sweat, every movement slowed, every action considered in terms of energy expenditure and chance of even the slightest breeze. We cross the City to Tompkins Square Park, to hear a quirky bitter woman sing catchy tunes of men and women and "love"; the conclusion seems to be that it is best to stay away. Returning to the West Village, the streets are exploding in a veritable rainbow of people, where every shape, every color, every person is allowed and encouraged to love and to celebrate it. The two sides of the city seem like the two sides of a coin, and we end up on the stoop, contemplating where we fit in it all. How hard it is to find someone into whom to pour your heart matter; how hard it is to think you'd do without.

I fear my fancy university diploma has taken the magic out of love. My rational defenses voraciously absorbed every interpersonal theory of psychology and now delight in using them to deconstruct the madness of falling, until there is nothing left but ghosts from the past and discourse. So that on such a day when Pride was a beautiful, empowering wave of acceptance and joy, I remembered that my pride simply holds me back from taking that one step over the edge, from jumping heart-first into unknown rabbit holes and having faith that the landing will be soft.

And still, in the back of my spine, the feeling, that should the right person stand on the opposite side of that edge, I'd have no choice but to surrender.

I undress, put away my rainbow-colored earrings for another year.
The flag I wave is white.

What You Tell Me

Minutes tick by
on the green cable box display numbers
My body
motionless
but my mind
racing

I walked into a bookstore in Brooklyn today
and a great sadness gripped my heart
How many pages
already printed
How many titles
already authored

I grasp at straws
and end up
with a mouth full of grass.

En Place des Mots

Mes rêves épanouis.

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New York streets sizzle in the heat that refuses to end. Sweat pours incessantly, and sunglasses never suffice. We packed our belongings, picked up some strawberries and a higher SPF, and took a train to the end of the city.

School is out and the beach was crowded. Young girls dance around facebook-connected cameras and boys with their pants too low. Age-old games haven't changed and the shrieks and big talk sound the same now as they did back then, only ridiculous. Lifeguards hang on their whistles, vendors comb the beach with their ice-cold Coronas and questionable smoking materials. An old lady with an ice cream cart comes late in the afternoon, rings her bell. NYPD helicopters whip up a rip tide.

I leave the sweltering heat and walk into the sea. Walk past the throngs. Dive in.

And in an instant, all that noise, all that commotion, disappear. I hear no screams, no laughter, no City, no summer vacation. Underneath the surface, all is still. In the cool waters of the Atlantic Ocean, the world is diluted into the sound of grains of sand washed against each other by the tireless force of the sea. I dive again, and again, immersing my entire soul in its silence, stretching my limbs in underwater strokes. When I was younger, I could swim so much further without coming up for air.

I arise to the madness. A lifeguard whistles, motions for me to get back to the shore. I wade through the masses; my hair a little whiter, my skin a little darker. My soul floating away happily, to the ends of the earth.

Summer Solstice

Another year spent far from the Arctic Circle, unable to revel in the beautiful madness that is summer solstice where it matters. Where for one moment, the day is impossibly long, the Life without limit. Well aware that Midsummer's always gave me a twinge of anxiety, because this was the moment it turned. From now on, every day the Darkness would inch its way further and further into awareness. It was all downhill from here.

But how sweet, for one moment, to be invincible. To stroll around quiet, sleeping villages in that light which is not dusk, not dawn, but somewhere exactly in between. Where meadow flowers still sing their sweet songs in the middle of the night, and the waters are calm and inviting. To relish in that moment, for which I persevere through 364 others to live and relive.

We sat in the deep, lush grass along the Hudson River, eating strawberries and speaking of life. Exhausted by the heat, I dug my face into the blanket, and it smelled of sweat and dirt and grass and summer. This is the life, we said, and it truly was. How blessed we are, to have survived another year, to have made it safely to this shore.

All In

A slew of invitations hailed in through my phone on Saturday morning. Of Coney Island Mermaid Parade adventures, of Williamsburg rooftops, of Fire Island retreats. The weather man on television said it was an unbeatable gorgeous summer day, and I could do naught but I agree. I turned the fans on high, pulled down the blinds, and stayed at home.

And after ten hours of royal wedding madness, of tears shed and dresses admired, after a whole day of not leaving my apartment, of not contemplating life, or to-do-lists, or adventures, I began to unwind, to regroup.

Today, I sat once more in the NJ Transit waiting area. Another angel stepped out through those doors, and we tripped to the subway giggling. The cycle begins anew. I am blessed not only to have these people in my life, but also, to realize how blessed that makes me.

Another dawn breaks over a cramped New York City apartment. My cup runneth over.

After Winter

We were so tired. We had bought our refridgerable goods and were waiting for the L, so ready to go home. And then we realized, we had not once gone uptown to see the skyscrapers; we hadn't even peeked at Times Square. A quick change of platforms, a late night train to 42nd street, and here it is, here are the lights that never go out. We sat and stared at the spectacle. Sat on Broadway and ate the ice cream so it wouldn't melt; left the fate of the rest to prayer.

When I left that elevator from the New Jersey Transit train tracks at Penn Station, I felt like I shed a cloak of outsidedness, of playing the tourist. I fell in with the floods of people, I was back in my City, where I belong. One of the millions.

God, I love being one of the millions.
New York, honey, I love being one of the millions, of you.

Kiss You Till Your Lips Bleed

Oh Kentucky, why did you forsake me?

After so many days of togetherness, suddenly abandoned on track 8 at Penn Station. I return to the erupted volcano that is my apartment in the aftermath, and everything is so quiet. So familiar, but like I haven't seen it in a while. Exhausted, I rummage about, trying to make sense of Reality, but ending up in bed with a completely unaffecting cineastic experience.

Not until I sit at that piano, do I unwind. I show the ivory keys no mercy; my mind shows none to me. I drink another glass of wine, forget the neighbors, remember all those vicious thought swirls that were so conveniently packed away during tour guide time, during BFF safe space. It is as though they waited patiently, amassed, drift in through my door en masse, like a pile of snow in the middle of winter.

I am helpless against their hurricane. I hold on to C chords and Dm7, hold my breath, and wait for morning.


Your stitches are all out
But your scars are healing wrong.

Hold on. One more time, with feeling.

Obv, Part II

Slow, silent dawn makes its way across the water towers and chimneys of Greenwich Village. Only incessant air traffic and the occasional bird announce their presences. The air is lush, the trees sleeping. I lay my head down at the foot of my bed and stare out at peach skies and steadfast brick walls. Quiet, comforting, unrelenting. The hydrangea on my window sill flourishes. How can I go to sleep now?

I don't want to miss the magic.

Obv

The torrential downpour started the second we closed the cab door. Five minutes later and there wouldn't have been a car in sight. We ignored our luck and ran to the deli for beer, the night too young to be over.

And thus another night ended eventually with that same old walk home from the LES. Houston street so quiet on a school night, and the temperature on Broadway said 70; how warm it had become since last I stumbled west on that street. A man lay on a subway grate, supposedly drying out his socks, I didn't offer to help. I passed a pink balloon in a puddle and was so tempted to take it home. My roommate rescued an abandoned plush puppy from the sidewalk trash the other day; our hearts bleed unending.

Today, as we trudged around the East Village, I felt entirely at home. Here are my people, here is my New York scent in the air. It occurred to me that the West Village is too clean for me, too good. I am undeserving. In the cluttered mess of East Village Alphabet Avenues, my scuffed shoes and unevenly rolled cigarettes burrow their soft edges and rest.

How blessed am I, that I found the place where my soul may rest, where my battered body can be rescued, after all?

Late Harvest

How empty is my soul without words? Staring at blank pages, and nothing to say. The heart, so often running over with words that drip onto the paper, or the screen, now a black hole and quiet.

And suddenly, like an infertile woman seeing growing bellies at every corner, it seems all the writers, musicians, artists in my vicinity are bursting with newfound inspiration and creative magic. I am happy for them. But oh if a single bead of their inspired sweat would expire on my brow, that I could steal a little of their genius for myself.

I lie in bed and realize the immense mass of the emptiness within me, when my word lies silent. How thin the walls that protect me. When my faith in these words falters, I have nothing to protect me from the Everything Else. An entire life crumbles in the margins.

mine.

Oil on Canvas

Six floors of priceless art and it's a straight drop down. I get vertigo as we stand against the plexi railing and contemplate the fall. It's so strange to think that you live here. That when we leave, you'll still be here and have a life here.

I smile. Visitors always make me love the city a little more, open my eyes to its dirty madness, its impatient diversity. I show it off proudly, like a new lover, defensive of any unkind word but unaffected by the verdict. So this is where you live now? Is it, like, forever?

Hearts break, despite the best of intentions. But I giggle to think that the Answer, just might be Yes.

My Sweetest Downfall

My mind incessantly busies itself

with you.

How hard it is to focus, to relish the daily intricacies and giggles, with you on my mind. How I long to run my fingers through your hair, for you to smile at me.

You trickle into my dreams; one minute dark eyes and in the next you are someone else, light hair in waves. But I know it is you every time because when you look at me, my cheeks burn and I look away, like some school girl caught red-handed. I awake with a delicious feeling in my limbs.

I think I see you in streets, I know you spend your days nearby. Or so I imagine. It is never you. Some day it will be and I will have no idea. How fickle the imagination, and yet it tickles me.

You are the secret I carry with me.

I loved you first.

Pickle Jars Are Just

and I know I've been asked.

Sidesteps

There is a withering hydrangea on my windowsill. My roommate put it there for some reason; she can't get herself to throw it out because it keeps coming back to life, despite her best efforts to neglect it to death. I am not sure if she is insinuating that leaving it in my window will nurse it back to more proper health, or if this is a fail-safe way to kill it off for good.

I suppose the same can be said for myself. I am not sure whether being left to my own devices is the one way I can finally and truly step out of that cloak of assimilation, the shell of expectation that holds me back from ingenuity, or if it will, in fact, turn out to be the quickest way to leave me a puddle of my own misery, a washed up oil spill of failure and readiness for the compost heap.

It's okay, I whisper softly to the plant, standing sadly next to the screen, a meek comparison to the lush green backdrop behind it. Whatever happens, we are in it together.

Summer Denials

I am hungry.

I finally dared to venture a gander at my bank accounts, and it occurs to me that after a year of obsessively titling myself as financially struggling, I am suddenly at the point where the money's actually run out.

Thank god the sun is shining, and we can live off fluffy, indifferent cotton candy clouds.

White Horse Tavern

Too many drinks, too much silly laughter. Too much running around Manhattan, trying to gather up the pieces, the people, that I love. Unable to calculate what it means. A year has passed and I am not the same.
.
I stared at the ceiling of the bar. He'd go here. He'd sit here and drink his beers just as I do mine. There is nowhere I would rather be. We hug goodnight, and there is no one I would rather be.

New York, honey, you stayed afloat amidst madness and sadness. You waited patiently, while I gathered my things, while I packed my bags. I am back, I am here. I may never leave.

New York, it's only been a year. But you had me, long before I had set foot on your dirty concrete floor. You had me, long before I knew what it was to know you. You never let me down. I pray, some day, I will make you proud in return.

Now That It's Been a Year

A year ago, today, I took my suitcases, kissed my mother goodbye, and I boarded a plane for New York. A year ago and it feels like a mere moment. A year ago, and it feels like forever.

Journal Excerpt, May 2009:
I go to America. What is it I hope to find? The answer comes surprisingly easily. I think I go to find myself.

And all the work that I did over those years in Gothenburg, rooting myself and becoming a stable person able to discern the grays and make sensible decisions, I threw it all out the window. I slowly undid every stitch in my stable web, until the blacks and whites that I'd longed for were clear, until the madness that I'd missed moved back into my soul. You win some, you lose some. You just make sure that the choice you made was right. Whatever that means.

New York eats me like a monster, a jealous lover. There is room for nothing and no one else. I am not sorry. I forget whatever it asks me to, I am swallowed whole, and I walk into the dark with a smile on my face.

I rarely think anymore of how much I miss what I left, how much I gave up to be here. I am here now, I live here. My roots when they grow, dig themselves into the earth beneath Manhattan pavements, nestle their way into subway systems and sewers where the summer stench of garbage nestles its way into my pores without reprieve.

I walk the streets of New York City with my back straight. I look people in the eye. I look people in the soul and I am not afraid. My two feet are planted on this sidewalk, my heart, my lungs, my very eyelashes.

June 6, 2009:
This is me, moving to New York. This is years of longing, over. New York, honey, I'm coming Home, if you'll have me, still.

Beyond Mountains

Offered a ride in the cab going uptown, I declined. I love that walk, I need that walk, crossing the island back to my heart in the west. All the evening's prose and predicaments bubble in me, rush around my blood stream and settle, as I pass the hipsters, the clubbers, the girls in too-short dresses and honey if you can't walk in those shoes, please don't, while preppy boys, hood boys, oogle and attempt to catch cabs that slip easily from their grasps. Manhattan air so warm, lungs working twice as hard to extract any oxygen from the vacuum, my neck perpetually swathed in little beads of sweat, lying still like winter breath on my skin.

How dead mid-town in the early evening as we arrived at Grand Central. A ghost town of black skyscrapers and garbage piles in the street. Last night, in the emptiness of having dropped off dear friends in New Jersey, I rode back on the train and saw Manhattan, saw my little toy Empire State building in the distance, and I felt like I was returning to a loved one. I didn't leave, after all. Look, see, I'm already coming back. I emerged from Penn Station and walked home down seventh avenue, smiling. Taking deep breaths of dirty asphalted exhaust and feeling revived.

And then, another night of poetry slamming on the Lower East Side. Another night of staring into brick endless high ceiling abandoned microphone stand in the spotlight. How these words dance, how the P in poet is a force at every utterance, soft thin razor limbs of the poetess are replaced by dark machine gun jaws of the converted. In my heart, I quit my lease, I pack up my things, and I move in to the sanctuary of the Nyorican.

In my heart, I am happy.

Summer Vacation

I can't get to sleep. I can't even get myself to try.

I feel as though I am at the verge of Summer Vacation, as though tomorrow is the last day of school, and then there it is: that magic moment when summer lies ahead of you and promises to last forever.

The Last Day of School. Dress pretty, put your hair in a bow. Sing songs of summer with the (dreadful) choir, and see that look of genuine relief and joy in the face of your teacher. And once it's done, run wildly into the Freedom, until that bow falls out and your shoes get scuffed. Read unimaginable amounts of books. Stay up until dawn, pick up the newspaper and lay in a hammock reading until sleep finds you after everybody else has had breakfast. Listen to birds who have no watches and needn't pay attention to them. Go night swimming. Go day swimming. Go drunk swimming and thank your lucky stars it was alright this time, too. September lies impossibly far away and you don't even really believe it'll come. Summer is here, there is only this moment, only this season, only this Life. This is the very beginning of it, before there are any summer days behind you, before the magic is at all tainted by reality.

"Well," said Pooh, "what I like best -- " and then he had to stop and think. Because although Eating Honey was a very good thing to do, there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better than when you were, but he didn't know what it was called.

Surely there is work to be done, surely I have to make ends meet somehow and pay my rent. But for this short moment, this delicious night, I am not concerned. I crank up the happy music, I put my face to the fan, and I laugh. Like a green, lush, lawn stretching its grass into the horizon, summer spreads out around me. I want nothing, if not to roll in that grass until the dark night sets and it's time skip home, exhausted, with grass stains on my skirt.

At Last

Time passes so quickly, the real world strikes so hard. We forget our heroes when their hairs turn gray and the magic spells don't keep the kingdom sparkling like it did.

But I see this, and it still brings tears to my eyes. It still raises every hair on my arm and sends shivers down my spine. I see this, and I remember how Big that moment was. I cross my fingers, and I pray for sparkle.