Sunday Times

I saw you in the street today. You look alive but you are dying. We are all dying, you are simply doing it more eloquently, more urgently. A reminder, perhaps, for the rest of us but it's too painful to see the steps, the falling apart, the relentless fight even in the face of hopelessness.

I can't reach my roommate anymore. Perhaps she is out searching for food, batteries, water. The world goes on but downtown New York remains in the dark. New stories write themselves in my interior; they make do with imagination, but still scream You should be there. In the stores, they've begun hawking Christmas decorations. It seems abysmally tacky. I'm still wearing my summer jacket.