2012.

You rise, in my opinion, he said, as I rolled a cigarette. And I don't even smoke. Still the corner came, and I left him. I don't want to rise. I don't want to look good in your eyes. I returned to an empty apartment and filled it with ghosts. My new year's letter told me stories I did not want to hear.

It dreamed of travel, of adventure, of love. It dreamed of excitement and owning what was yours. How every year is a clean slate once, and how quickly it becomes the same.

Tomorrow is no different, when the numbers have changed. Beware doll, you're bound to fall. Your throat is dry, your eyes. Nothing changes, this night like any other, such is life. Such is life.

New Year, New You. You promise things will be different. Keep your hands to yourself. There's a splinter in mine. Happy New Year. Happy. New. Year.

p.s.

When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose

the Ride

Push and Pull, up and down, it's an incessant roller coaster this life. Do you realize that a year ago today I was in Oz? Every New York day was a snow storm and I thought I'd never get out. Another year ends, a new one beckons, I am as clueless this time as everytime I stand on that threshold: this is the life I chose.

My landlord calls; 6 days before homelessness and he says maybe we can work something out; do you want to stay? A job application lies in wait. Three weeks of America and then I don't know anything, it doesn't faze me. You didn't want to go home tonight; there is no home; it breaks my heart to see you. Another year dawns. This time it will be different. A dear friend cries into the West Coast sun; I wanted to surprise you all by showing up. All the world is a stage; it is easily crossed.

This is the life we chose; don't you see? You with your poverty, your two houses, your three weeks of vacation, your creative genius. We made this bed. Let us lie in it till the sheets are crumpled and the numbers forget to matter.

The new year arrives. We are already here.

to Button

My days and nights twist; I sloth through the mornings and sprint through the nights, no matter. Disease rips at my veins and my patience, I do not care. It is time to pack, the months of relative stability come to an end, I tear at piles of papers and notes and reminders of seasons past. A small voice at the back of my spine whispers pack carefully, you may not return, and I laugh at the silly notion. My roommate said long ago she suspected I'd stay out there, that wanderlust would grasp me and I'd be lost to the moment. A craigslist ad appears in my News Feed, a friend of a friend, corner of Jones and Bleecker, decent price. I giggle again into the night.

I will be back, of course, I have promises and obligations, haven't I? (haven't I?) But all the time, that voice, helping me pack, one bag for summer suits, one for things I can live without in the coming month. things I can live without, period. I resist the urge to throw everything away. Who needs it. I caress Ginsberg on my dresser; he is so heavy, but I would carry him anywhere. What else is there? There's the clothes on your back, the letters of your loves, the machines of the modern world. Everything else you can do without. You are weightless, you are free, I am happy.

I will be back, of course. I have promises and obligations. I have. Just give me this moment, give me this breath of air, give me this smiling soul. I am happy.

Slate Clean

The infection slowly releases its grip on my body. My breaths are strained, slow, like those of an aging man, but my body begins to unfold itself, to awake. I sit in the living room in a yoga pose and let the pieces fall into the puzzle. With each stretching muscle, the picture becomes clearer: what must be done, what life this is to live.

I long for security, I do. I long for exactly the same stability that you carry with you, the savings account and predictability and control that you cannot live without; I am not inhuman. I am overwhelmed by the continuing support from those around me, who pick me up when I get too close to the edge, who feed me in every sense and who do not tire; I am ashamed of my continued need for them and inability to repay what I owe. I am not ignorant.

But I slip into the bath with Henry Miller, and he speaks of Greece and strangers who instantly feel like home, he bubbles with adventure and paints dinners like were they masterpieces of art. He speaks of home as a place one loves but itches to leave. You long to break out and test your powers... to make friends... to look beyond walls and cultivated patches of earth. You want to cease thinking in terms of life insurance, sick benefits, old age pensions, and so on. My toes began to wrinkle in the hot water, but my soul was young anew.

I ache now. But were I steadily confined within the walls of a job, a house, a savings account, would I not ache worse? I should come to my senses, I hear you. But I fear if I let go this dream, this itch, this fire, then I let myself give up, and I die.

I ache now. I am alive.

Completely Unscathed

Have yourself a merry little Christmas, and the lights sparkled like never before. We sat exhausted on a late night couch, our bellies full, our hearts warm, our senses satisfied. A call sprang to life on the screen, six hours back across the ocean and dinner was only starting. We joined them in their meal, told stories of the season, of the future, sang songs and toasted to the wonder. I walked home later, in the stream of holiday revelers returning to their beds, and remembered what I try so hard to forget.

Isn't it time you stopped whining about missing New York, he said weeks ago, before the beers grew too many. Isn't it time you got over it? I wanted to agree with him, I wanted to move on, because that is what people do. But when New York is the only place that has ever made sense, is the only place where none of the heartache, or fear, or sorrow matters, how can I? My every step in this life is shaky, and only those streets steady me. Please be patient. I am trying, as best I can.

If I were not here,
I would be nowhere.
If I were not here,
I would be no one.

And next year,
all our troubles
will be out of sight.

To Stay That Way

When they come to count the words
too much is still left unsaid
We scramble with pennies
I wish I had told you months ago
But the time will never be right
and I don't know how to make it.

I busy myself
with other tricks

It doesn't help.

Turbulence

How quickly the days pass. What a treat with upcoming festivities, parties, plans. Around each bend another treat. The research study continues, I spit in cups, I put numbers to feelings. All day, energy 8, 9, stress level 1, 2, sleepiness, 3. I leave my last sample when I am so tired I can no longer see straight. Sleepiness, 9, energy, 2, stress level 8. Numbers to the undefined, the knot in my gut, the unease. There is too much to be done. and every moment is precious.

Your words, they stir me, they remind me there is something I'm supposed to be doing.

I write a million lists. They're not it.

Vows

The Brooklyn winds are cold
sometimes
but the Brooklyn love
moves oceans
and lands
and weathers the storm
like it was inevitable.

I saw your faces
on the screen
so happy
like little kids
like this was the first day
and a million more would come
each better than the next
and every one was yours.

I don't know if there is
forever
but if there is
it always belonged
to you.

All Kidding You

The morning was early, alcohol still steeping slowly in my blood, when she packed up her bags. By the time I awoke again, she was gone. The apartment was quiet, the rain relentless. How lonely freedom feels, when it arrives on your doorstep uninvited. When you are left behind and nothing is the same anymore. The day became a steady stream of visitors, instead, to fill the void, to chase off the storm. For a minute, as we laid tangled on the couch, it snowed. That'll never last.

Later, wine bottles amassed and eyes grew hazy. Ears ringing, the silence made her quiver, we had no answers. Advice tossed around like question marks, not sure we'd know the target if we hit it. Castles build themselves in the sky.

I spend my days looking for ladders.

Substitute

My muscles are sore, my body tired. It is long before my bed time when I creep under covers and fight to stay awake. The days find me at a job long abandoned, it takes my every ounce of energy, I adore every minute.

That there is something at which one is intrinsically Good. That there is a spot where the pieces fall into place and something from the back of your spine steers. One of the children fell asleep on my arm while another nestled at my side; discomfort could not make me move an inch. Hours passed with little lives hanging on my hips as we went about the tasks at hand. As though there were a nook where they were meant to fit.

I stumbled weakly to the office, another shift to work through once the first was completed. Remembered the feeling of being good at something, and how many mornings I would wake exhausted but every time happy about the job to which I was about to go. My father told me it wasn't good enough; I know what he meant, and I know he was partly right. But to these children, all the world is new, every laugh is a clean slate. They look in my eyes, I am cured.

Who You Are

It creeps through me, unlocking secret passageways and doors long closed. It trickles through rusty veins and cold eyelids. A person too long forgotten, a laughter too rarely heard.

We sit on the couch, tipping random Rieslings and catching up the passing months since summer was young and the water was warm, and we built a friendship over bare feet and other bottles still. When we part ways at the train, our shoes are cold with rain but my heart is warm with reminders. A million post-its fly through my head with things that are wrong in life, but when he asked how things were, I said good, and at some point I realized I meant it. The list of people to adore grows long; it pins me to the city when I am not looking.

There is a force in my step again, I remember it from before; there is a smile in my eyes. It climbs up my spine, a winding course, I know what this is. This is happy, and the person forgotten, was me.

About Last Night

Sunday afternoon and the light lasts an hour but the coffee many more. As people traded, one after another, on the tables around us, we sorted through the definitions of our beings. Tell me about yourself. But there is no answer, to such a non-question. Choose your colors, paint your picture, this is the moment when your slate is clean. Your answers rehearsed, you've been practicing your social resume for months, they sound decent enough. You applaud yourself your ability to smile that genuine smile, blissfully ignorant of what lies behind it. Cold hands grow warm along the body of another, things begin that were not, before.

I don't know, I said later, on the couch with the roommate. I don't know, she replied. I don't know is not no. I don't know is not nothing.

Perhaps that, by default, makes it something.

M.R.I.

The morning after is always cruel in its daylight and in how clearly the colors arrange. You try to tie together the yarn that unraveled, salvage what escaped your yielding skin and sew it back into a person again. You cannot quite remember words, or reasons, or how the night even got so long; the edge of a winter storm whips at your feet as you stumble to work, but on the ground lies only cold water.

By the time I arrive at the hospital for a brain research study, the streets are dark again, yet my mind no sounder. But as I lie in the scanner tunnel, unable to move, or speak, or hear, only focusing on staying still and letting thoughts stream past unnoticed, a sense of calm descends through my veins.

I remember what you said. I heard what you didn't. I tie them in, when I put myself back together. And my brain looks just fine, in pictures.

Of Our Lives

My phone died before I'd even started the trek home, it was a long and silent walk, the bars closing. I focused on keeping feet straight and thoughts straighter and no worries tomorrow will be another day, the deadline will circle your drain as it does.

It was a perfect bar, it was. Nestled into its bureaucratic walls, only a small sign revealed its safe space of old men and rows of whisky. The bartender shook his head disapprovingly of my company; I loved him in an instant.

Secret stories make their way through my innards. How quickly the cab pulls over when you call it; it's just like New York and do you remember? I stumble over cobblestone streets numbly, reach my door, count down the minutes to my alarm.

How different these eyes will align
come morning.

But I Can't Change Time

Sounds of winter struck the pipe outside my window this morning: sleet dripping heavily to the ground, undecisively. When the movie was over, we ran through uptown Christmas-lit streets to catch the bus before the cold entered our hearts. What pride struck my senses as the curtains closed, and I remembered what it is like to surround oneself with creativity. Everyday they sit at desks around me, as though that were all there was to them, and suddenly credits roll with their names and I am in awe. How light a heart inspired.

Back on the south island, we squeezed in to the back of the crowded, little bar, all warm soft wood and ancient dusty details along the walls. Ancient dusty details on the bar stools, at that, with thick beards and tobacco packets in a row. I felt at home.

You have to give it a shot, you know. You can't make a home when you have been here mere months, she said, and was right, of course. I must sit on that wooden bench, drink my beer, and let Stockholm sink into my every limb.

How new the friendship and already how dear. I anxiously await the dust to settle. Become a regular. I have to give it a shot.

For the Long Run

I dreamed last night
that my family
were all running a marathon
together
and it was long
and hard
and we stopped along the way,
I needed to change my shoes.

And when I stepped out from that room
-what a long break I took-
how much faster my feet
we ran
my steps so light,
the hills green and
sun shining.

There was a fork
you could choose
the long and flat road
or the shorter
harder
hilly terrain
I said
wouldn't it be more fun
to take that one.

I woke up
with the delicious feeling
of adventure
and joy
and lightness of being
in my limbs

The symbolism
seems too obvious
but there must be
something to it.

St Eriksplan

Two nights exiting at that same subway station, in a whole other part of town. Both nights too tired, too weary, too sick, and both nights returning home with a smile. So it goes, when you leave the reins for a while to rest in someone else's hands. How easy to take old friends' softness for granted, the ease of a Saturday night in unseen places when the eyes so familiar. How much unknown dance floors remind you of the corners you try so hard to avoid, and you wake up with that headache again.

There is much City left to discover, much Life left to live. November behind and adventure ahead. The chapters are all new, we forget that the pages turn but they do. Grab a pen. There's work to be done.

Correspondence

We are almost 30, Peter. How did that happen? Perhaps this is why our fire cools, our inspiration goes lacking. Or is that merely a poor excuse? I don't know any more. I who used to have so many answers.

I carry a headache with me everywhere I go, lately. I never had headaches before. I cannot sleep at night, and toss between watching tragic television shows on my computer and journalling endless pages of regret and confusion, until I pass out. Morning comes too quickly, I am perpetually a step behind. I cannot wait for January and America, even as it terrifies me, how quickly time passes, and how come January 1, I no longer have an apartment, nor an office. I start all over. It might mean I am free to go anywhere again, do anything. But I don't know where to go, anyways, so it hardly helps me. Am I living in Stockholm, now?

Every day is such a mad roller coaster. The highs convince me I can do anything, take on the world, have come such a long way and will make it through this bit, too. The lows drag me through strange streets I never loved and remind me only of my worthlessness and the futility of my actions. Better then, to give up and move on. Get a job, get a life.

I know it would be good for my mental health to get a job and a stable life. I know that. I have therapy bills to prove it. No matter, Peter, it is not what I want. I know I will push myself into the ground, I will look back on a life lived in such sorrow, but God, is it not better to be sad and free, to be overwhelmed with emotion, rather than complacent and restrained, underwhelmed and numb? Surely, I knew all along this was my life. I spent years after my grad school degree unraveling all the stability I'd created. I wanted none of it. I feared therapy had softened my madness, had taken my inspiration from me. I am not, without these demons, and I missed them. I have no choice but to bring them along.

Tail Spin

Back at the apartment, there is no falling asleep. The headache returns. Business as usual, and I don't know what it's trying to tell me. The afternoon escalated into playdates and friends from yore, all bringing babies and discussions on house buying. The little town remains, safe for another generation. By the time I packed up, my head was spinning.

Quick stop at the other end of the pendulum and they were already downing shots of Jack Daniels; I was not late in joining. Some sorrow to drown, some victory to celebrate, no matter. I had forgotten what it was like to be with people who spoke my language, to be with people in whose eyes I had talent of any use. He walked me to the train and told me all the hidden things when it was too late. I had to stand inside the train to listen, so it would not leave without me. Spent three hours trying to focus my eyes and passing out just before the call for Stockholm Central.

This is a long life, and confusing. We hold on, that the train does not leave without us. That we are not left on the platform, bags in hand, spring in our step and nowhere to go. We hold on, because one day we will be glad we did.

Knowns

When the alarm rang, it was still night. I gathered things and fell down the hill to the subway, and the streets were empty. Mornings are not my thing, but for a two-dollar train ticket, I was willing to go. For a moment's respite, I would sacrifice a hundred mornings, after all.

The sun rose quietly over the city of my childhood as the train rolled in. Past the lake where we'd swim on late drunk nights before heading home. Over the bridge past that apartment house where we went that one New Year's Eve that was the coldest in history, and I still remember your hands inside my shirt. The sun lit up the church steeple, the river delta, the town square. I didn't fear the city today. I have realized no one remembers my face, I am safe. And it's a pretty enough place, for a stranger.

Later, I sat with that child in my arms as she fell asleep, and I had gotten exactly what I came for. Just a day, a moment's rest. Where there is no Stockholm, no New York, no uncertainty, no poverty, no weary limbs. There is only a baby as dear as were she your own blood, a season that follows tradition to a t, and a world where nothing surprises, nothing alarms. It is harmless, it is safe. It is everything I've left behind.

How the sleep, tonight, will be sweet.

Controlled Breathing

It's a mad race lately, I don't sleep, I can't see further in front of me than my own hand and I am glad. Run, Run, as fast as you can, as it were. Do you remember that time, years ago now, it was St. Lucia and I hadn't eaten or slept in days, I was running on adrenaline and empoverished ecstasy, there was a ticket to a flight in the morning, I didn't sleep. We stood in a corner of the kitchen, the apartment was full, I thought this city is so beautiful in the dark and you looked at me with those eyes, that was years ago.

The music moved me tonight but I only heard your sorrows in her words, it made me uneasy. I forgot to clap, I forgot to look, I was elsewhere. You were right there.

Right there.

I need a ticket, now. Only leaving, will make this all right.

In Somnia

The hours passed so quickly last night, my eyes wide awake and restless. But the minutes turned to words, the restlessness turned to fervor, and by the time the clock passed morning, my head was swimming but my heart racing. Mere hours passed before it was time to rise again; the day stretched impossibly long ahead. Still, all day my heart was light, work a joy. Evening came with heavy lids and yet here I am, again, awake and relentlessly sprightly.

I will not question the energy, from where it comes. I will not question the light heart, the moment's rest. The winter is long, and dark, and unending. Every burst of energy is a treat to be savored.

Even if the night finds me sleepless, again.

On Giving Thanks.

I went away, I promised I would not return until other words were finished, other pages closed, but I cannot. I forget how it's done, but I know something is missing; the days pass without processing, without ink, I am lost. I forget how this is done, forgive me. How have you been? I missed you.

At dinner, last night, the abundance of food, we move but carry our ways with us, I was glad for the company. Last year how overwhelmed with gratitude, with the impossibility of such a reality. I made no list this year. So much for which to be grateful, and yet. Last year, I loved New York and that was all that mattered. I thought we were made for each other. I thought that was all that mattered.

Eight years pass so quickly, but how painfully, how slowly they end. I don't want to leave this apartment, she said. This is my home. Eight years pass; they can only end in heartache.

I thought we were made for each other.
I thought that was all that mattered.
Now I don't know who I am, without you.

Intermezzo

(There is a ticket, with my name on it, headed for New York. It comes with a return ticket, an end date. It exhilarates me to think I will soon enough walk those streets. Suddenly, how close the City again, how real.

It terrifies me to realize how short lived the joy. To realize that I willingly tear every single one of those stitches, cut open those burning scars, let myself bleed for mere hours of breathing my City, sleeping calm in its steady beat. My pulse races, my skin is warm to the touch, I long to see you.

It already hurts so much, to leave you again.)

Overs

It occurs to me that my words were better before. That my blood coursed quicker in poetry and has since slowed. My fingertips are cold.

It occurs to me that there is too much to sort through, to break down and build back up. I do not know how to do it. It is not a matter of choice.

Perhaps it was New York that did it, that sent music to my plain existence and painted the stories in more vivid colors, more appeasing strokes. I am not in New York. What else is there to say?

It occurs to me that it is time for a break. There will be more. But I have nothing left to give, now.

Frailty

Phones, always these voices, always this change they bring. I called the apartment on Morton Street and could barely grasp that she was there, amidst puppies and Halloween decorations, and I was standing freezing outside a grocery store. Aren't you at least coming to visit soon? she said, and the dagger turned slowly in my heart.

Later, it rings again. A love so nearly lost, the struggling body packing up belongings and making arrangements for a world without. Here is the money that I owe you. It's not all, but it's all there is. Clothes ready to throw away. The end so near. Don't ever read the letters, burn them, pretend it was never this close. The phone rings, the waiting room, the scared heart hoping for a lifeline.

If you ever feel so bad that you are done, don't be. You write those letters because there are words left to say. People left to love. They love you too. You are not making this place any better by leaving it.

You don't know it yet, but things will get better. You don't know it yet, but it will not be cold, forever.

After All

(This is my life.
How lucky I am.)

of Wisdom

It finally arrived, that book, whose title was scribbled on my wrist weeks ago even though it was barely legible in the aftermath. I bought it used; the seller said "Like New" but wasn't it filled with scribbles and markings after all? I flipped through it, trickling down dog-eared pages and deciphering Somebody Else's handwriting in the margins. Like a secret treasure, that I could sneak into their read, try on their experience, sit in their armchair a little too closely and relax.

Appropriately enough, this is what I found:

Money has been the one thing I have never had, and yet I have led a rich life and in the main a happy one. Why should I need money now --or later? When I have been desperately in need I have always found a friend. I go on the assumption that I have friends everywhere. I shall have more and more as time goes on. If I were to have money I might become careless and negligent, believing in a security which does not exist, stressing those values which are illusory and empty... In the dark days to come money will be less than ever a protection against evil and suffering.

and

At that moment I rejoiced that I was free of possessions, free of all ties, free of fear and envy and malice. I could have passed quietly from one dream to another, owning nothing, regretting nothing, wishing nothing. I was never more certain that life and death are one and that neither can be enjoyed or embraced if the other be absent.

Henry Miller,
The Colossus of Maroussi

I will read the book, the whole book from beginning to end and try to ignore the underlined passages to make the book my own. But today, now, I thank the previous reader for a breath, for a momentary lifeline. They are invaluable, in whatever form they may come.

Wednesday Night Flag

Turn the corner, it's a straight line from here. At the top of the hill, see the lights of the square where you live. Where you live. There is an apartment where your books lie piled. Here live Jack, and Henry, and Sylvia; that is home. A song in your head reminds you of a dentist chair and the feeling that it will be okay. You are not lost at sea and drifting.

The bar has turned into ours, into a place where you feel safe and soft and borders are erased because the walls will hold. The soundtrack is perfect, the bartender a friendly face. She says such kind words but you cannot hear them. You only hear your own critical words but no matter. In this short moment, this subdued light, you are safe.

I would not toil, and struggle, through poverty and worthless mind circles, through such storms and winters, if I did not believe in the Reason. I would not suffer for the Word, if I did not love it.

And that is all that matters.

Not Your Fault, But Mine

Tuesday Nights

I went away, I'm sorry. I don't know why. I feel fine. (Perhaps that's why.)

If you haven't got something nice to say, don't say anything at all.

(Although in my case, the "nice" seems to have been replaced by "self-centered, self-indulgent, and sad". But you get the picture.)

Words will return. They always do. It's raining out, but things are pretty good.

I haven't image googled cute puppies this entire time, I swear.

Liff

Yesterday, for the first time ever, I image googled "cute puppies".

My life, for all intents and purposes, is over.

My Sweet Carolina

Oh, the American Night. Oh warm, humid air and do you remember how we would camp out on lawn chairs until the sprinklers began in the morning? Our neighbors had one of those giant trampolines but I was too scared to do any tricks. Years later, I turned 25 in the Mobile night and all the road lay ahead of us. Crickets in Texas, sunsets over that wide river in Mississippi, rooftops in L.A. looking out over the end of the road, the end of the Earth. I still remember the feeling of stepping out of Penn Station, how quickly amazement gave way to the comforting feeling of Home.

America falls apart before our eyes. My poor, unemployed, uninsured self whithers at its ungracious foundations, politicians falter while the People rise, voices loud but words scorned by media, gagged.

Eighteen years ago we went West in search of the American Dream. Its blood still courses through my veins, I cannot let it go. I will not. America, I miss you, tonight. I fear you will never be the same.

I haven't been, since I found you.

Relativity

Last night, late night at the office and when I walked home, the air was black, the streets glistened with fallen leaves and rain. Today, frozen fingers and frozen nose, it is fall. I write my father a long letter, tell him not to worry. Tell him I won't end up on a park bench, I won't starve. Only realize later that maybe that wasn't his baseline criteria for where his daughters would end up.

A teary voice calls to me from warmer climates and it breaks my heart that I cannot make it better, that it is bad at all. Another voice comes from across the ocean; why is everyone so far away? Why am I. She spoke of her last birthday, how we were all together. I look back, am reminded:

"She asked me if I feared the dark as much as I used to, if I trembled at the thought of winter with the first turning leaf and the anticipation of what is to come. I had to think about it for a while, the answer not immediately clear.

No, I said finally. Not since I moved here."

I'm not on a park bench. I will not starve. This, too, shall pass.

Right /Rite/ (Write)

I cannot make heads or tails of it. So many days without a breath of fresh air. Days of sunshine come and go, I do not notice them, I pull down the blinds. Twenty-four hours of darkness, it wouldn't work without it. I eat, I forget to eat, I make coffee and realize it's evening, I turn off my phone, try to turn off every connection to the outside. Startled when the mail drops through the slot and thuds on the floor.

Is it supposed to be like this? For every hour of productive writing, there is one of procrastination and another of agony. I wander the apartment, tear at my hair, read other people's words and love them, want them to be mine. Look at my own and my gut turns. Is this all I've got? Did you think something would become of this? I lose my breath, can't be bothered to regain it. Opened up the wrappings of this heart, to try to find the letters that trickle out of feelings, only to find piles of pain and no words worth retelling.

Difficult to calculate worth. So much pain, for so few ounces of printed page. So much blood, for such pale ink. I wish I could tell you now, that when the moment of clarity at last came, when there appeared in the rubbish just a sliver of poetry after all, that it was worth it. I don't know that it was yet.

But I don't know any other way to live, either.

Epilogue

(There was a picture, the view from the office at sunset. The Empire State building glittering so. The way the buildings would glow. Distant twilight sky colors, busy streets, New York. I realize why I don't miss you so much. It has not sunk in that this is no vacation.

I haven't realized I'm not coming back.)

Modern Prose

http://www.poetspath.com/transmissions/messages/kerouac.html

Remember
Remember
Remind
Remind
Lather
Rinse
Repeat.
Repent.

Notes

I opened a book, a note fell out. My name on it. I'd know that handwriting anywhere. He is always there when I need him, always bringing me words and dreams. Always too far away. (Everyone is always too far away, though.) And in the card, a quote.

"Write
in recollection
and amazement
for yourself."
--Jack Kerouac

The world is too large, the miles too many. I could spend my every day in transit, I would never be Everywhere at once. Forgive my confused ramblings. All I wanted to say was Thank You.

( )

It is better to have loved
and lost
than never to have loved
at all.

They say.

I'm not so sure, myself.

The Cave

Two days of solitude pass by, and I haven't seen a single person I know. The afternoon's quick stab to the corner store my first moment outside the apartment since Friday and I felt like a stranger among humans.

I thought I would enjoy the time alone, an entire apartment to myself, how long has it been? But I seem to lost my shape, trickle into puddles along the floor, I become aimless and pointless. Miss morning coffees and being held accountable. Busy myself with cleaning, scrubbing soft soap into unseen corners and remembering how much I love that feeling. Carry music in headphones and sing, sing, sing until I tire.

My sister tells me to take a few days off, finish that damn book already. I am so grateful for the time, I know this restless energy is the required precursor. I know I don't want to face those pages lying there in wait. This manic sprint is just another escape. The desire for happy music. Finally, for a second, I dare to peek into that black hole which I have so diligently avoided, knowing full well what lies therein and preferring denial for a bedfellow. I have a drink. I pace. Soon, soon, I will sit down.

Good for Something

I took a break from the dinner conversation, leaned out of a staircase window and had a cigarette. Friday night and still the little town so quiet. You can see stars here. I took deep drags and meditated over glowing embers, the proper courtyard below. How do they get the grass to grow so primly?

We were celebrating the new friends' engagement. Three months apart, three weeks together, and already ready to make promises. It made me smile, earnestly, I adore them their sparkling eyes and lack of pretense. This is what happens to cynics like us, she said and noddded in my direction.

A dear friend from stranger times returned from a Vipassana silent meditation retreat and said his life had changed completely. Everything arises only to pass away. I admired him his nearness to zen, his letting things run off his back. But I did not envy him.

Is not the struggle what makes us human? Is not the constant tugging, the crashing waves and the rarity of sunshine what teaches us our outlines and the beauty of our impermanence?

My roommate went to New York today. I forgot to forget you, again.

Views

I always get lost
when I leave the Village
I knew that
I'm not sure why I went.

Under Water

The train left the tunnel for a minute, crossed the bridge, and revealed rows of people in their t-shirts, lines up along the water and basking in the sunlight. Indian Summer. We sat at an outdoor cafe, and I took my jacket off, just because I could.

It was an evening of gathering up the threads of friendships neglected. Of remembering how much I love these people, and the person they make me. Of the simplicity of hours of laughter. I am grateful.

Sometimes, you have to let it be, just as simple as that.

Before October

Today it feels like spring out, did you notice? There was that certain warm air like when the ground is thawing and you know it's almost here. Birds chirp relentlessly, people were sitting on doorsteps as I passed them. The sky is the kind of blue you'd like to lie on a blanket in a park and look at for hours.

I know it's not real. I know.

But I don't care.

Vacation

Screw it. If you suddenly wake up smiling, then do it. I'm giving you some time off from your regularly scheduled misery. Listen to Appetite for Destruction so loud your ears wince and you arrive out of breath at the office from walking too fast. Sit at bars and carry on silly conversation with newfound friends and don't worry so much about missing dinner. Put aside the writing, the reading, the reminiscing. Forget you-know-what and who-know-whom and you-know-where. Ignore the darkening evenings, the ominous chill. Revel in soft skin and soft hearts, in how good a real proper laugh feels, all the way from your gut, through your teeth, into the air.

However long it lasts, enjoy it. You can think about it later. You will think about it later. Vacations aren't forever. Enjoy it, for all it's worth.

And Then

I don't know why it happened, I just looked at my iPod and didn't go for the same old songs that make me think, that make my heart ache, that make the walk home dark. I put on Brit Pop and M.I.A., I straightened my back and looked at every single person I passed. Fuck it, I thought, I'm over being tired, and sad, and homeless, and helpless, and lost. I walked a little bit faster. I smiled, just a little bit, just enough to probably look crazy but fuck it. Like I said. I felt happy. I felt like I was going to pull my shit together and make a life out of these days.

Do you ever get so tired of yourself that you've just had enough? Do you ever hurt so much that you're just over hurting anymore and you stop? Do you ever hear a really happy song and find your heart bubbling even though you didn't try to make it?

I came home, and she said if you want, you can stay a little longer. The cold, rainy streets are suddenly three months further away. The rent that is asked of me a motivation to find work, to find money, to get the rest of the puzzle pieces and fit them in. Crookedly, perhaps, but there.

Fuck it. I have a home. We'll be okay.

Someone Else's Days

Rested limbs and light heart. Limitless coffee and better company could not be wished for. It's Sunday and brunch and the view is all turning leaves and it seems a shame to ask them to pull down the shades. For a brief moment, how easy life. How easy the future, how close the laughter. I understand why people choose such a world. For a brief moment, I don't understand why I don't.

Retreat to a quiet apartment. Such a blessing to have somewhere to go, even if only for a while. Ignore the clocks counting down, they will only disturb your slumber. I sit in front of that word processor, knowing full well the words must be written, but unable to resume their story. How far away they seem.

Today I see the stable life, and I wish that it were mine.

Årsta

Oh how bright the sun today, we fought bravely at the outdoor café, Look! I'm sitting here without a jacket on! and no matter that we piled the blankets high and the coffee grew cold halfway through. Winter is far away yet, I laugh in its face and am invincible.

Nine floors up and the view tames the fiercest lion. The train there crossed the bridge, but pulling out of the south island tunnel was nothing like climbing the Williamsburg bridge. The unsullied houses made my heart sink. I read my manuscript, those dirtied crumpled pages, and they only remind me of things I am better off forgetting, how can I ever finish it when I cannot pull on those feelings again? If I sink in I may never be able to crawl out. I feel like I'm being judged by my bookshelf, she said, but I simply reveled in her collection, in how delicious titles taste when you read them like that, the reminder what it is to be devoured by literature. Words never fail, where life cannot compete.

I saw you tonight, and how comforting your voice, that smile in your eyes. I saw you so close, and yet you were endlessly far away. When I came home we spoke of impossibilities, how there are too many things to wish for. Life has a lot to live up to. Winter, when it comes, will be long.

(all) Over It

On Piglets

A day of rain, but once evening came, the skies cleared and the sun set perfectly over our view in the harbor. For a second I could pretend the boat was the one on the 26th street pier and wasn't the company just as sweet, the light as breathtaking?

Giggles move on to that familiar bar, that feeling of home, and the bartender plays a tune that makes the soul sing, it's not lost on you. Last night, a pair of eyes that knew you when asked questions that made your heart break and you didn't think you were so easily broken. A single sentence can lose your hope and you don't know how to pick it up again. I know you are elsewhere, I can't help but wish you were here.

She looked at me with sadness in her eyes, and I said, I have somewhere to sleep, I have something to eat, I'm fine. But it wasn't the whole truth. The whole truth is I have her, I have hands to hold and smiles to face. I couldn't ask for more, if I tried.

Perspective

Surgery
Four months chemo
Radiation

The second child falls ill
a few years after
the first one was declared well

I can't help but think
how ridiculous
that I should create
my worries
so willingly

when theirs
were so out of their control.

Fall/ter

Today fall truly arrived to Stockholm. I was late for work but still the skies were dark, ominous, I remembered what a winter in Sweden was and shivered. By the time I'd locked up the office, the sun was out and the scarf superfluous. It's easy to be grateful over such a small change.

The weekend passed in stretches of immobility. Of wearing pajamas all day and enjoying movies to which you knew the ending by looking at the cover. Of sitting on opposite sides of the kitchen table with magazines and coffee in silence, but still preferring it to sitting there alone.

I do not write. I do not find the words in my soul. I have been feeling well this weekend, freed from the dark clouds that perpetually circle my air with their questions, their intangible answers. It saddens me that I cannot both be light at heart and literate.

But tonight, just tonight, I do not mind.

2006

I haven't told you yet
but I'm gonna be
with you

Pet Sounds

Some sort of scribble on my wrist; a book title, a reminder of inspiration in times of need, I wash my hands carefully so as not to lose it. The happy hour champagne prices quickly run away with us and by the time we leave the bar, I am wasted. Adults around me keep their walks straight; I adore them already and try to keep up. By the time we reach the next bar, I am falling over myself and have to hold on to my phone to stay standing. A calm voice comes across the line, walks me home.

I reach a quiet apartment, the world's spinning slows, and I regret having had to leave the party when the night was just beginning to sparkle. Remind myself that the fall is long and the bars will remain, the people within. Voices of the evening remind me that time is magic, the world beautiful. I smile in recollection, sleep better than I have in weeks.

Re/Hash

http://twodollarstwentysevencents.blogspot.com/2010/03/if-i-could-come-home.html

(I miss you
so much
it hurts)

Stockholm

sometimes
at night
when there are very few people out
and the city is so beautiful
it hurts
I feel like home.

Re:Spite

The bar felt like a New York speakeasy, the kind that's become so popular lately and you are welcome to hang your coat on the meat hook. You won't need your jacket she said as we went out for a smoke, but the wind had turned, and I shivered. Before I left we had made plans of wedding dress shopping, of party secrets and humble celebrations. My heart burst in the simplicity of their joy. We don't want to make a big fuss. I was reminded how much I love that they are a part of my life.

The wind picked up on the south island, but I was let into a warm apartment and hardly noticed. A rented movie, a few hours of quiet. Normal. Like this living room was a short respite from the storm outside, from the tangled mess within. I reveled in the simplicity. By the time I walked home, the storm lay thick over the city, the streets were dark.

Sleepless, I gave up my staring at the ceiling and turned the lights back on. Began reading through the pages of a manuscript long neglected. Thought, this is what I'm meant to be doing, and for a second felt a sense of calm at my side. I slept. Does it have to be so hard?

Re/search

Inspiration. That's what they call it.

I spend the morning sifting through innumerable sites, all clad in white, all decked with overexposed, semi-focused pictures of happy people, just randomly nibbling on local-organic treats while reclining in designer chairs with vintage fabrics. This is what you should wish your life looked like, they tell me, and I know I'm supposed to create a site, an image, a life just like that. Somebody should say the same about me.

But I am not inspired. I am not envious, or eager to paint my to-do list in their soft white smiles and just-so unruly hair. I am overwhelmed by the perfection, and I am over it.

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. Give me dirt, and grime, and an honest face I do not have to cover for. Give me truth, and in it I will find the beauty. I will relax. I will live.

When It Drizzles

It seemed a sweet gift that the pouring rain ended just as I needed to go out. Layers of clothes and suddenly it turned out that the air was warm; I am so grateful for every morsel of summer that remains. The movie ended up being about how much the protagonist loved the rain. The irony was not lost on me; I allowed myself to giggle, it was lovely.

He waxed poetic on walking through Paris at night, dreaming of beautiful ages in romantic hues. Every frame dripping with cobblestoned streets and red wine in small glasses, bistro tables lining the sidewalks and Paris doesn't need any help in looking like magic.

Montmartre is beautiful in the evenings. Do you remember that cavernous restaurant in the Marais? We took a wrong turn and found a house where you said we'd one day live. Tonight, I stepped out of the movie theater and the streets looked nothing like that, but no matter. Paris brightens my heart, just by reminding me it's there.

Of Mice

It was hours later than we'd aimed to go home. We left the apartment together, we returned together; I'd forgotten the feeling of having a roommate. I'd forgotten the feeling of having a home; I revel in the sweetness.

The night wore long, the bottles of wine opened lined the table and we couldn't get up. How lovely a long night in Stockholm, the apartment was beautiful, I contemplated hardwood floors and British design, a terrace in the making.

But they spoke of their lives in New York: old apartments, the East Village mice, the Williamsburg rent deals, cockroach customs and cabs, West Village puzzles. Every sentence made my heart ache. New York left a void in me I haven't begun to understand. It beats and cuts and twists in me like a rusty dagger with a vengeance; I bleed.

It is easier to miss than to love. I make up for lost time; the pain is unbearable.

So Do It

Out Loud

We talked for hours, I suspect. I walked around the living room table fifty times; the carpet is so soft underneath. I stared into the neighbors' across the street; they were watching television; I should have watered the plants instead.

The point is, after all the little tornadoes of contempt and regret had twirled through our conversation and into the air, finally the right words came out.

There, she said. You said it. And I knew she was right.

It's funny how you knew all along what to do. How that light always shone and you followed it, on crooked paths perhaps but you always knew what you hoped you'd find at the end.

Sift through the madness. You'll get there, in time.

My Dear Disco

A jumble of thoughts in my head, unidentifiable emotions swirling around like angry bees through my insides. I stand, sit, pace, trying to let them sink to their respective pockets, or storm out of me and at least make sense. I trip in limbo and wait for the days to pass. Today I left the office early; five hours later I'm still waiting to resume my work day.

I suspect I paint a much prettier picture of my past than how it really looked. As though there was a time when I could properly feel things, instead of wading around in this thick soup of ignorance, that I could put words to them and know them and live them. This heart beats so heavy, how does all the blood sink to my knees? I had a home once, filled with things that were mine, I had invoices with my name on them and keys and routines. It seems so pretty in retrospect; the truth is, when I think of it now, does it not make me a little queasy?

There was a point a few weeks ago, when I stood at the edge of having no place to go, and I seriously considered a park bench in a quiet nook south of Hornsgatan. I remember standing there, looking at it, and thinking, wouldn't it be a relief to just give in, lie down, be free. The nights were still warm then, the world still kind. The days are an incessant toss between two extremes of longing. The soup thickens, my heart grows numb.

I think I miss clarity, most of all.

Soundtrack

I'm Not There

How long a Tuesday night can become, such an innocent day and laundry waiting in my sister's basement. One glass in and I was too tired, the world still seemed impossible, where do you go when there is no place that is yours, what do you do when there is no pocket of life in which to toil?

We said goodbye at that same street corner, do you remember, it was months ago now and Stockholm was an unknown adventure in the making. I only barely knew my direction then and now the streets were so calm, so comforting. My heart bubbled with pride over you and I forgot the words for it.

The bar was quiet, Tuesday night quiet, it made the glasses hum at the music. There was a moment, perhaps it was just the beer, where I thought, this is better than a concert, when Bob Dylan vibrated heavy along the old wooden bar, and I wanted to lie on it, sleep until the songs were still and dawn was new, no intrusions to disturb my slumber.

New York, honey. I miss your heavy bars and humming sleep. Your warm Tuesday nights and comforting streets. New York, I miss that place which was mine.

Playing House

The wind picked up tonight. It swirled around me as I made my way down dark, quiet streets. I had forgotten to notice the summer night light has gone. The air is still so warm, my bare legs trick me, I retain the fearlessness of a whole other season. Is it fall now? Is it time to board the windows and hibernate our hearts till spring? I cannot conceive it; my heart burns much too hotly still.

As I made my way up that last part of the hill, around that last corner, followed my confident footsteps through locked gates to which I had the keys, I giggled slightly at the simple pleasure of going home. And I know this is not real, I know this is only just pretend, but sometimes games are just as good as the real thing, if you believe them bad enough.

When I lie in my bed, I can hear the subway trains run underneath me. Under this building, under the earth, at a steady pace on a regular schedule, the green line trains run underneath the bed where I sleep. The thought comforts me infinitely. I vow to believe, however much it takes.

Re:turn.

That last bit, I know it so well. Past the shoreline, past reeds, and trees and bike paths. Past the sliver of an island where I first got drunk. Past the old stone bridge, wasn't there a story of the architect plunging to his death from its edge to save him the shame of seeing it fall? And then the train had stopped at its final destination; like a bad holiday rom-com, I was back in the city where I grew up.

Anxiously navigating familiar streets; I know them by heart and still they are strangers to me. Avoiding eye contact for fear of recognition. Past my old high school, the town square, the orange buses. The twang of the voices around me like an untuned piano in my cringing ears. Such a friendly dialect. My old hairdresser and the concrete slab library relic from the 70s, a reminder of happy childhood summers and it is a beautiful city to grow up in. Another shudder, down my spine. Turning the corner and climbing the elevator, I entered predictability, comfort, a world entirely according to expectation and plan. The world we grew up in, regenerated.

And yet the goal was worth it. Three days spent holding this baby, this new child in a family without blood ties. The magic of shallow breaths against my own, of impossibly small fingers wrapped around my cynical limbs and warm weight sleeping soundly in my arms. Of an entirely new person in the making, and the way the world stops revolving around us when we find ourselves part of a greater whole. I held on to her curious gaze, the soft smell of her blond locks, the innocence of her trust, and swallowed my pride.

That city is not mine. I left it long ago and perhaps it never was to begin with. While it twists and turns through my innards like shrapnel from a war I thought I'd finished long ago, it wraps people I love in soft down and whispers to them sweetly of a life just like they always knew it.

How glad I was when the time came to leave.

Blowing

times have changed
but fuck it

get a new watch.

Rest Stop

Tonight I am tired. Not weary, not worn. Tonight my limbs ache and my mind treads a thick syrup, my breaths are shallow. Tonight the air went out of me and my eyelids are heavy, oh how heavy, but not despondent, not giving up, in.

It seems a part of me relaxed. It seems a part of me landed.

For what it's worth, this sleep shall be sweet.

Less/Home/Less

Tonight I stood in a new room in an unknown apartment and unpacked my clothes for the first time in three months. It is not forever, it is merely postponing homelessness for a few weeks.
But when I logged into the wireless network, a sign said "This is your Home", and it made me smile. Sometimes, such simple treats are all it takes. I sleep in a bed tonight, in a room with a door and my clothes in a drawer.
Tonight is a good night.

Sun-day.

Clouds of hangover remained once the storm passed, memories of a day waded through the fog and rearranged themselves slowly in my veins. Some pieces already lay softly where they should, sunshine and soulful proximity and gratitude, while others tumbled about with their hard edges and tried to make sense. Distraction came from across oceans and for a moment the question marks stayed silent; my muscles stretched and realized how content they were.

The walk home was lovely, cool, but unguarded moments make way for confused pieces to resurface, kick their jagged edges into the soft lull of the stroll. I saw you in the street and the pieces didn't fit until it was too late.

I falter, sometimes, wobble in my composure and forget my direction. But things are looking up, dear, they are really looking up. When the fog is still so thick, why else would my soul be smiling so?

29

The heart is a very small muscle. It powers our entire lives and yet is no larger than our fist. It amazes me how much it can contain. That within its fragile walls lie all that love and gratitude that make up our existence.

That within mine beats memories of breakfast in bed, of coffee along the water, of summer returning for one glorious warm, sunny day, of Mapplethorped soul old friendship cigarettes, of music and drinks, of parties and presents. Of hurricane phone calls and cobblestoned meetings. Of one moment when all the other worries washed away, and what remained were the eyes of those I love, who treat me better than I deserve, who love me when I don't know my own name, who stay on the line till all the words have been said and I stare out over the misty city reflecting in still waters and think Oh that's how those pieces fit together and see my crooked patterns make sense against the bruised and scarred lining of the very muscle that powers me.

Do you think of her often? she asked me as we sat on the street, too tired to return to the party and drifting into Bigger conversation. And I do. I think of you, and all the years you lost, all the life. I think of me, of all the years I had ahead of me that I did not know would come, that I could have never dreamed.

My heart has grown a million times since then. Getting older is not too bad, then.

On Comic Tragedy

Early morning, we rise in a fog and stow away the beds, the chairs, the bags of clothes. I pack a small bag and trudge through the streets toward the new, gleaming office, already tired, already weary of the days ahead. Another favor asked, another kind hand extended even when I know she should have said no. Just a few more days, I think, and scold myself for my spoiled issues. That my back aches from carrying a heavy laptop, that I leave clothes in my sister’s car so that I will have something clean to wear come tomorrow’s festivals, that I am throwing a great party on Saturday and haven’t the time or place for cake-making.

This is a beautiful city, summer remains in the wind, there is music, and wine, and life to be had, and beautiful friends with whom to share them. What have I to mourn? What pity is there to possibly take on me?

I slap my ridiculous ego for its childishness, go back to work. One day this will all be a romantic memory of my youth, and I won’t understand how it could have been so sad.

Off the Island

The trip out was quick, suburbs so well connected in daylight. By the time I was going home, trains were running on midnight schedules and I sat yawning at every missed connection.

There’s so much air out there, such vast views and long sunsets. Well-fed, content with the company, wine glasses in hand, we retired to the living room and spoke of old New York, of the impossible Charles Street door that threatened to fall apart at every turn but wasn’t that neighborhood the best of all? The new arrival anxiously awaits his time to go, and I can’t help but think of the streets he’ll walk, bring up the subject at every turn. That heart beats perpetually; there is always someone ready to gaze at New York with stars in their eyes.

I didn’t know you before New York. I see you here, now, we share the same city again, speak the same language, but it still strikes me as an aside, an oddity. In my mind I still see you on West Village corners, remember how much we missed you when you left and forget to rejoice in proximity.

Things were not easier then. They just look so pretty, in retrospect.

and Curiouser

We crossed the island, knocked on a glass door. A man our age picked up the barking dog to let us in; we took our shoes off and looked around. We don't know how, but we'll make it work, he said, and his smile was warm, sincere. Perhaps there, in that corner, at that desk, we could create an office for ourselves. We could build our future.

Later, I climbed that hill, the same hill from my first week in Stockholm when the sun shone and old friendships were made new, when the city lay as yet another undiscovered Pearl in my hands. I turned the corner, found the code in my phone, climbed the stairs, narrow winding stairs but not many. An hour later, and I had staved off homelessness for another month. I'll clear some stuff out. I wasn't looking for a roommate, but you can stay here for a while. Tumbling down the hill, how light my steps, how full my heart of gratitude. Another stranger on the list of people who keep me alive on this Mad trek, and my weariness subsides, if only just a little.

And then that voice came down the line, that familiar voice I have heard so many years. It was the same, and yet something intangible had changed. The baby girl had finally arrived, no one could comprehend and yet we all knew things will never be the same. I can't believe she is finally here, really here, with us. I find myself afraid of everything. Life is beautiful in its simplicity.

Today I dared to believe at least three impossible things before breakfast, and somehow they dared to come true. I may be on borrowed time, but it's so much better, than having run out.

Uncertainties

Muscles compressed around an immobile spine. All the time this bright Sunday sunshine beaming through the windows, sounds from the street a constant reminder of a life outside. Finally, in the evening, I put on clothes, boots, music, I go out. Walk around the island and look at the concrete. It is, as ever, reassuring. I sit on a park bench and write, a quiet refuge nestled in along a hedge, unassuming. I never could write in cafés, even though it is the fashionable thing to do. By the time I walk the hill back to the place where I sleep, pink clouds billowing out at the point where the street ends in a sharp drop to the harbor, I feel revived, if only partly.

These wretched spirals into isolation and dread, these long hours of doubt and longing.. Does everyone carry them in their hearts? Do they carry on their daily lives under such heavy boulders and simply bear it? Is this what it is to be human?

Dumbfounded, I creep into my cot. Tomorrow is Monday. The world begins anew.

By Any Other Name

Rained Out

The trickle increased. The block party moved under umbrellas and awnings, anxious hipster bodies huddled tightly together without seeing each other, without touching. We moved between bars, gigs, warm basement spaces where no words were heard, only quick glances at indifferent shoulders, feet moving temporarily to heavy beats. A band played in a window; we stood outside to hear their last giggles. The rain picked up and we pointed our one umbrella ahead of us, in two steps we were home.

I woke up for a second. The rain had turned into a flood, the streets were quiet. The summer party washed away. Tomorrow, we wake late. The morning will be new. The city, too.

Rot

It's not as if I'm on the streets; it's not as if I'm starving. My life is privileged, and I have a million opportunities to fall back on to secure a home, an income, a bearable existance. I've done the rounds this summer, I know how incomprehensible my choices seem and how many people would rather I pulled myself out of this slum and arranged for my civilized life.

But I sit neatly between that rock and that hard place, unable to move, unwilling. Meanwhile, hours pass, days, weeks, I do not budge. What use is freedom when perched on such a precarious ledge? I daren't laugh, or dance, or write, for fear of falling into dark waters. But I cannot take the chartered course, cannot wade in low tide and watch my life lull itself to death. Apathy makes the floor tremble.

In medieval times, did they not pull torture victims apart by their limbs, torn in opposite directions until they broke? Unsure of my crime, I await my judgement.

(And the truth is, I miss you.)

All My Cards

Stockholm, I had so nearly given up on you. Had scuffed the edges of my heart and lost its luster in the ever-growing piles of worry and discontent. Had hung your picture frame next to New York's and found your colors to fade, too fast.

But as I left his apartment in the Old Town, rolling a cigarette along busy cobblestoned alleys and navigating the bridge and the hills of the south, the slightest calm eased into my step. The streets were busy, the air was warm, the city was alive with people and music and life, at every corner lay opportunity in that last shred of golden dusk. There has to be hope in a city like that, there has to be potential within.

Stockholm, I am here now. I haven't the option to leave you, nor you the one of kicking me out. Stockholm, my dearest. Can't we please be friends?

Skånegatan

A concert in the park ends. Floods of people trickle down the hill, past the old wooden houses--this used to be the poor worker's streets, how they toiled through life and died young, how they drank, their spirits line the gutters. Now we are all 25 something and pretend bohemians but we can still afford expensive beers and heavily taxed smokes, it doesn't seem right. I ease into the sidewalk bar nonetheless, it can't be helped. It's too lovely, the friends too dear. The night is warm, the sky blue, who knows how many more nights like this we get. My phone beeps and I make plans for tomorrow, count on another sunny day.

For a moment, everything seems possible. For a moment, my place in this city seems real, sound, I bank on it and pretend there is no earthquake at my every step. I make believe this is my life, and I am grateful.

I count on another sunny day. I will, until the earth gives way beneath me.

Truth.

Discovered,
in letter to self:

Pay back your debts. Re-earn your friends. They are your best attribute.

I can't help
but find
the words wise.

List

To Do:
-Live in big city. Spend days wandering concrete ground, converse with sky high buildings, sleep in soothing traffic white noise, enjoy company at any odd hour of bright lights and lost souls. Revel in dirty, grimey, unending energy, sooted lungs and cynicized heart. Write.

-But for three months of the year, move to sun-warmed cliff along western coasts, let hair white and skin brown, wash body clean in cool, clear waters, sleep in salted limbs and roll of waves, stare blinded into sun and never tire. Dream.

A day such as this,
my slate is clean.

Dylan. Esque.

I'll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours.

(I said that)

Aside

This city is beautiful
breathtaking
home
How many years have passed
since we first boarded that tram
with our suitcases
and we didn't know where we were going?
Now it is
where I'm from.

And I don't belong
anymore.

Kino

Long slow dusk and billowing clouds in the twilight. A tram in another direction, a bed in another neighborhood, we climb the bridge, and across the water familiar hills stretch west towards the sea. It is breathtaking.

The bar is quiet, Monday night quiet, we nestle in along the counter and catch up. Mere weeks have passed, entire lives have up and overed like eggs flipped in Sunday morning frying pans for breakfast the kind that lasts for hours. Words flow in, out, exploding laughter and profound sentiment trickle between rounds. This is friendship.

I am tired of talking of myself.
These are the people who matter.

and No Return

Finally the airwaves aligned and we saw each other on the computer screens, I heard the few words that had returned to her voice, pieced together the stories while one of the babies fell asleep on her arm. How impossibly long it seems since that Sunday in May when we stood by your hospital bed and thought we might lose you; how difficult it was to remember a moment before.

You said you can't sing anymore. There is no pitch left. You haven't tried your fingers on a piano, but I should; maybe something you once knew well will still linger in them, if you did. You had such a beautiful voice. We spent so many hours around that piano, and I don't know who I'd be without that.

I saw a concert with Regina, she was in London, I saw her warm up against that piano and it was hard to hear where her body began, where the ivory ended. I remembered hours, days spent by the piano when I had one, my entire wretched youth wrapped around that wooden box, released through a tapestry of notes, of songs, of music. I would not have survived my youth without it. It amazes me I survive adulthood.

If your voice can be taken from you, the music ripped from your fingertips, do you not owe it to yourself to play like hell while you can? Do not I? I resolve to unearth my piano again, to raise my voice. Perhaps I feel I owe it, to you.

L'Assassino

It wasn't till later
much later
on the tram home
when we were drunk
and that guy came
and invited us
to his after party
and we laughed
but we loved
that he invited
us

that I realized

the point of this
whole evening
was to remind me
that the best
and dearest
and nearest
friends

are
mine.

Question

Do you ever feel
like that ball of lead
that yarn of anxiety
just grows
and grows
and spins out of control
and you sort of let it
and you sort of encourage it
because you figure
you'll deal with it soon enough
anyways
and then you don't

and then it becomes
this immense shadow
in the corner of your eye

until you realize
that yarn is
mostly
thin air
and you should get your act
together
because grown people
aren't afraid of the dark
and you really
really
ought to stop
making such a
big
deal
of something
that was not
that big
to begin with
?

I do.

Who Are You?

Gothenburg, Revisited

Last night with a suitcase rolling behind us as we made our way through the city, waving our hellos at every street corner, how comforting the little city seemed. Later, at the bar, he told me he had lived in a total of three places in his 31 years and I could do naught but stare at him wide-eyed. My little black book of addresses inhabited has become too scribbled in to count, any more. Tonight I walked home through our old courtyard, and I swear the grass there is greener now. It was so quiet, eerie. I knew it so well but it is not mine, anymore.

We spent the day by the sea, and wasn't it a little warmer, didn't the sun shine a little brighter? I came home with the slightest tingle of salt sprinkled on my skin, reveled in running water, showered so long I nearly forgot my appointments.

The night ran long; our conversation refused to end. We sat in the courtyard, rolling countless cigarettes, and at every turn in the stories, my eyes filled with tears. Such is life, when you put words to it. I walked home with the same music in my ears, but the streets were entirely different. So dark, so empty, and yet endlessly familiar. These streets which were my streets, this city that was my home. I think perhaps it's a different place entirely.

I suspect I am not the same, myself.

Urban Escapes

The boat had that Sunday morning feel about it, smelled of coffee, not much talking. Not much of anything, it was mostly me and the German tourists. I sat in the windy sunshine and read my book, passed century-old summer houses in the archipelago before we slowed down and entered the Stockholm harbor. Here it is, here is my city, I thought, My brand new city all to myself and I wondered if it had missed me when I certainly had missed it. Weeks on that island, in such a paradise of warm sunshine, ocean suds, fiery dusk and endless wine, I felt ungrateful to long for streets, but it could not be helped.

We finished brunch at the one spot in town that was not vacation vacant and walked out onto scorching streets, strolled through antique shops and giggling at the stories that caught us up. The concrete underneath my feet soothed me, the friendly voice and familiar streets. I reassured myself that we were in no hurry; when the summer ends, I will have months yet in which to overindulge in them, friends and streets alike. I have had that feeling before. When New York was truly new and the entire adventure lay ahead.

How quickly I tear out the pages that came before. How eager to land on unwritten sheets.

Say Your Name Out Loud

If I kiss you
where it's sore
will you feel
better?

Will you feel
anything at all?

"But I Hope"

Endless delving in the misery; we read every new article and are appalled. A dear visitor arrives on the island, and over countless glasses we still go over the details, the little scraps of anything we know. We try to make sense, we try to connect. We are but human. We wallow in the tragedy, to try to understand.

When I woke up this morning, the sun was finally shining. A soft, steady light, unmarred by wind or clouds, the sea a blue glass mirror below. I turned on my computer and found a video waiting, just a short clip, just a greeting from a friend. But it was so much more than that. It was you. Since last I saw you, you've come home. Since last I saw you, you've held your babies and found new words. Since last I saw you, you've begun to smile.

And for all that is awful, and hopeless, and tragic in this world, for all that is incomprehensibly cruel, this one thing seemed proof that there is something left to fight for. You reminded me what a beautiful thing it is, Life. You reminded me these tears, could also be for good.

In Paradise

The day after the ground shook in Norway, everything moved so slowly on the island. What point was there in sun-basking, in happy socializing? I drowned in newspapers and stared into distant walls. We offered to make blueberry pie for the evening’s barbecue and I jumped at the opportunity to gather berries, needed the distraction.

Nature so quiet but the iPod so loud, between songs I would realize the stillness around me and it was only disconcerting. The blueberry patches stretched infinitely around me, it’s a good year this year, and I stood in a sea of blue, plump berries in every direction. Picked one. Picked hundreds. Filling my bowl, I had more than enough. Picked more. One by one, unable to stop, I simply focused on the simple act of carrying each berry to the bowl and stretching out for more. The loud music and repetitive behavior numbingly comfortable in an incomprehensible world. My fingers turned red, dark red, blood red. The pie was made, we still had blueberries for days.

Most of these days have passed in silence. It is too hard to speak of what has been, it seems impossible to speak of anything else. Life will return, words will return, it is inevitable. It’s just a matter of enduring the silence in between.

On Wounds Opened

A bomb explodes in the country next door. A street like a war zone and windows shattered. We lay disconnected on a sun-drenched cliff and remarked how lovely it was.

A deranged gunman steps onto an island, massacres dozens upon dozens of children trying to make a difference with the tools of democracy they've been offered. We went for a swim in still waters, not a sound to be heard but birdsong and our own laughter. Not until much, much later, when the sun had grown cooler, the barbecue coals had died down, the wine was finished, did we connect to the outside world, did we hear the disaster that struck so close to home.

Norway, our little brother. A nation we so reluctantly let go a hundred years ago, they fought and tugged to be free and yet not a weapon was fired. Norway, our dear ally, our closest friend, a million ties across the borders and our languages entwined. So many of us welcomed into their land of riches, so many of our dear friends still there now.

We thought we were safe in our sheltered peninsulas up north. We thought we were immune to hatred and insane violence, that we were free. Don't call me, came the texts to loved ones on the mainland. I am hiding, and I don't want him to hear me.

The island is beautiful today, sunshine and a light breeze. It's quiet, calm. Reality is incomprehensible. The words are not enough.

Night Swimming

There were thoughts, and thoughts avoided. There was a long day of plans and words on paper, waiting to be tied together, neatly wrapped, presented. I had them on the tip of my tongue.

But then the sun began to set, a great big peach of fire in the west, and I quickly changed, nearly ran down to the water. The pine trees were on fire, bright orange and red flames trickling through their branches, spreading onto the cliffs, the jetties and boats. The water was still, so still, and bright yellow in the low sunlight. I remembered a film I saw as a child, about whales escaping oil spills and fire on the water. Fire on the water! It seemed impossible in the world I knew.

For a minute, I let the warm rays dance across my skin, my hair in the breeze, and I dove in. Let the cold water surround me, mingle with my skin until I no longer knew where I ended and the sea began. After the initial shock settled, how sweet the moment, and I could not get myself to get up. Swam long strokes straight ahead, saw my fingers lift the clear water, break the surface, while I aimed for the island across the strait, still aflame in the setting sun. There was not a sound in the world but my steady strokes, my breaths, I was alone with the swallows, who skimmed the surface around me.

Eventually I got up, of course, the fire had died in the trees, left a purple shimmer for a few minutes before returning them to their regular browns and greens. The sea was still quiet, but the magic was gone. I carried a piece with me. Everything else had been washed away.