Gloria

Quiet calms lull us into archipelago life. Mornings turn into afternoons, into evenings, into new days and slightly more freckles on the skin. I walked down to the ferry dock one day and received visitors from other towns; we trudged the bit back to the house in carefree giggles and breathed the country air.

But in the soft summer evening, she found a golden ticket with my name on it, and how soon again we felt the ground in sweltering asphalt beneath our feet. The rain passed, our clothes drenched, my cigarette papers melting between my fingers, but the sun returned and brought Patti Smith with it, what were we to do? We squeezed further into the crowds, let a thousand breaths and arms and laughs warm our bodies, and we gave in to the magic of poetry.

How beautiful an August night in the Venice of the north, how sweet the late sunset, how soothing the skyline of ancient houses and tall-masted ships behind the stage, how quaint the little city that calls itself home. We have a million opportunities, the world is ours for the taking, and the moment doesn't need a restless urge; it is fine.

And yet. Patti dances around on stage, with her wild hair, with her swelling heart, with her passionate rage and lifetime of baggage, and she whispers of words yet unwritten, of songs yet unloved, and I know. In a world full of uncertainty, in my ragged maze of a lifeline, in my wrong turns and failed promises, there is but one truth. One day, when the years have grown too many, when the missteps have amassed in my suitcase, when regrets pile up and I imagine that simple life I could have chosen if I'd only let silly notions of madness go, I pray I may remember this moment, this feeling, and know that this was right thing, that this was the one truth. I must go home to New York. 

There is no other way. 
And there never was.