What You Get

A hangover drags its limp weight across the afternoon, across my tired eyelids. We write messages and remark how worth the headache, but the harmonies do not sound as good in sobriety, and he deletes the sound byte with a laugh. So few steps to dinner, I take the long walk home after and find their smiling faces at the bar, it is impossible to resist. The soundtrack is comforting as ever, the family of conversation, and only her hair color has changed. I wore canvas sneakers today, because I could, because the snow is gone. The last remaining specks of steam freeze along the asphalt; every street corner is a disaster waiting to happen.

The last hours are too delicious to waste in sleep, isn't it always the way. We survived January, and didn't the calendar turn a new leaf, in spite of ourselves? Last night when I walked home, I heard a bird singing in the empty trees, it was just like those early morning strolls in spring, when you and the bird share that moment, that secret, that only the two of you know what magic lies ahead.

My nights are a little colder, lately, my poetry naive and dated.

But hold my hand, and February will save our lives anew.

By Me

There were no buses left, no subways still running. Only the quickly receding wolf moon to keep company on the walk home, it wasn't far. We ate too much, drank too much, we kept telling each other it was Friday and everyone believed it because we wanted it so much. There is unrealized potential in me, I can feel it, he said, and we stared out the window to see what ours might be. When do you go? they asked, and I didn't have the answer they deserved.

Your aching heart burns in my chest, I cannot help it. I will leave a key outside the door, it is yours. There was a picture of New York in snow, today, she sent an ode in the mail, the bricks and street corners haunted me all day, I could not escape them. Distant memories of a love I once knew begin to move in their chasms six feet under my skin, he plays that tune like he was made of it, we sing, I never want to be anywhere else.

The alarm clock looms around the corner.

How hard it is to know, what is life, and what is merely the stepping stones to get to it.

Your Soul

The snow rains away, for one day the temperatures seem bearable. The apartment warms up, the double covers, it's no use, I still shiver in bed. It occurs to me that I have forgotten your voice. Voids fill up with maniacal laughter and a stuffed calendar, but there is a moment every night when I wonder what the hell I am doing. On the television, she giggles in coke, but I'd be satisfied even with a little gunpowder. The Brooklyn tulips have withered, rotted. They spread their frail petals along the window sills, stems stretching into eternity, but there is no spring to be had. Yet. It will snow twisted book pages for months to come.

Mess

The doorbell rings. I live next door, he says, and my Sunday morning brain cannot quickly enough arrange its excuses properly. Stop smoking indoors, he says, keep singing. I retreat into the apartment and begin tearing at the seams, suddenly uncomfortable in my one sanctuary, the one place I thought remained safe. The walls dissolve; it is winter outside. In my fantasy, I tear out all the books from their covers, let it rain pages and print, it soothes me. In reality, I simply make a mess and try to learn a lesson.

An airplane ticket lies waiting in my inbox. It whispers of Left Bank cafés and a language that sings. It is close enough to touch and real enough to believe in. As I tumble down the rabbit hole and grasp desperately at roots and straws, at least that ticket beams at me on the other side of the little door. To travel is to live. I will find the key, I will drink the poison. I will build the walls, again.

Make the Flowers Grow

The baby cries again, she finds no rest. Perhaps there are nightmares. I stare all night at a blank page, it seems scarcely different. The sheets are clean, but the kitchen sink is a mess, and I fill my calendar to the brink, it is relaxing.

Yesterday, in the dark movie theater, an overwhelming longing for Parisian streets in springtime. Today, the opportunity presents itself like a pearl in the folds. I scramble to find unseen coins at the edges of my pocket book, my heart fluttering at the thought of cheap wine and the steps of the Sacre Coeur in the sunset. Paris, my beautiful city of dirty stone and winding song, how many years it has been. The new year whispers in my ear, entices me to leap as in years past, to say yes to adventure because to travel is to live, and I am tired of only ever dying.

Tomorrow you must rise early, and work, and the day after, until you are wrung out and have nothing left to offer. Then, then there will be travel, and excitement, and you will remember again what it is to be alive. February lies writhing in the margins. In February your eyes will glitter again.

Zero Degrees Fahrenheit

The baby cries next door. She hasn't been sleeping well lately; I don't know why. I don't get much sleep myself.

Winter has wrapped its frosty fingers around our necks. The air is painfully cold, the way it kicks itself into your lungs, but there was sun today, and I skipped along the water in bliss. The canal is full of twisted ice, it looks like piles of broken glass, but hopeful. I returned to the apartment with flushed skin, lay in the bath until my toes wrinkled, and discovered new bruises along my thawing body. Sometimes insight appears to you where you were sure it would not. I looked at my face in the mirror last night and saw eyes I did not recognize in it. But so it is with age.

January still soaks me in apathy. I cannot think, cannot feel, cannot plan. I search around my insides for clues, for hints to help me make these decisions but none are to be found. I know there is love, and longing, and agony, and fear within me, but I cannot gauge their frequencies in my chest. The days pass, instead. Today, at the piano, there was the slightest sliver of direct sunlight on the wall. The first direct sunlight into the apartment in months. I sat there and stared straight into it, could not believe my luck.

Winter is like broken glass.
But hopeful.

Strung

http://open.spotify.com/track/1flPOH32BJxkFdLQmW227T

Charles

if you have to wait for it 
to roar out of you

wait patiently

Of the Ashes

The illness takes over my entire body, mauls my muscles and my senses, I am delirious. Yet others are added, my defeated immune system is helpless and stands aside, as I stare incredulously at my pale face and see only more disease, not less. I try to accept, to let the days pass in cold sweats and the inability to stand, but I miss the world, I miss my friends, I hit my head against the wall time and again, forcing sensibility. I sleep under extra layers, dreamless sleeps, expect every morning to be better but it refuses.

One night, flowers arrive on my doorstep, impossible rays of springtime whispering that Brooklyn has not forgotten me, that Brooklyn knows the vicious blade of winter, but that spring will come, as it always does. This, too, shall pass, and I cry with bleeding heart into the petals. This, too, shall pass. How ready I am, for just a little bit of sunshine.

And suddenly, if it doesn't appear on the horizon. A day so cold the ice particles glitter through the atmosphere, a sun so bright the snow on the rooftops hurts your eyes. The illness rages on, it refuses to let go but is it not slightly diminished after all? I write long letters and feel the embers of giggle, of madness, of adventure sprout in my belly. I know they are there, biding their time. I know there is more to life than these unanswered questions, than this terrified isolation, than this trembling body and estranged apathy. And after the darkness has passed, after the illness has left my body in ruins, how I am pure, how I am brand new, how I will Live.

It's almost here.
It's almost here.
Can you feel it?

21st Century Friend

The illness plagued both our bodies; we sent texts in the night recounting fevered shakes and inability to sleep. As I trudged through the snow home from work, my eyes bloodshot and my breathing labored, I said wouldn't it be lovely if we could sit on the same couch in the same cold sweat and watch a movie and be miserable and she said yes. 

Hours later, the movie developing into more sinister territory than we had imagined, our delirious asides evaporating in green tea fumes, we decided it was a lovely lazy movie night. The fact that we had to sync our computers to play the film simultaneously, or that our reaction commentary only stayed as relevant as our fingers quickly could text, the fact that we sat on opposite coasts and wallowed in our viral self-pity, it didn't seem to matter. Still the best movie night ever.

Some friendships don't even need proximity, to be real.

Rhino-v.

A preposterous virus barges into my system. My entire body seems to become but a giant sneeze; I am helpless. Still I ride that elevator to the top floor and let their familiar voices envelop the evening. Now, as ever, I am in awe of their friendship, of their allowing me to be family. I will never believe I could deserve them. The walk home was devastatingly cold, but how short, the luxury is not lost.

The days pass, the mornings are lighter. My father asks what I'm doing with myself and I can only barely paint the plan to satisfaction. I play a game to which I've never read the rule book. It will disqualify me, it's merely lying in wait to, and then I can resume normal operations. But for once, just for once, I do not panic over the insufficient map, over the quickly beating heart, over the river rapid passing of time.

The apathy of January finds its purpose.

We are fine.

Pas de Deux

So all must be well.
He calls in the middle of work, I cannot answer. When I check my voice mail later, there are last minute tickets waiting, there's a mad dash across the city and an abandoned laundry time (I'm already days into nothing but dirty clothes anyways), the stage is whitewashed in swan feathers and I am mute for countless minutes over the Belgian beer after. How those hushed lights, those effortless bodies get me everytime and I am grateful for his care.

My phone vibrates incessantly with invitations from across the island. Friday night, they are scattered in bars with their laughter and all I do is sleep. By the time I am awake again, it seems too late, and the only lesson is things are never as they seem. We pretend to learn, but I know it is too soon, and I fall asleep with cold feet, as ever.

He says he keeps tripping on the finish line, that London evades him and Stockholm has nothing left to offer. I adore the sadness of his blind stumbling only because it mirrors my own. I don't know what I'm doing, I tell him, but I'll keep the keys until I do.

I tell you you must write.

I surround myself with mirrors.

of Hearts

The tab's been paid, he said, and I couldn't believe the deep laugh in my chest. Another Wednesday night at that bar, in that well-known nook, with smiles you've known since Stockholm was new and unknown and a terror in unending daylight. Familiar faces line your periphery and the early alarm clock seems an unreal joke. She ventures a careful smoke and you giggle in the midst of misery.

Your frame seems thinner; it has been so long since I've seen you. Your clothes are the same. I still love you, regardless. He writes and says I can keep these keys through April; she says by then it'll be spring and you won't be able to leave. Voices come from across the ocean and say I won't believe it until you are here. I could not handle the disappointment. And in the end, is that not the truth? That you have a million pearls in your hand, and your most difficult task is to choose the one. You are never left with grains of sand. I walk home quickly from the bar, keep beat to the tune in my ears, stop only to write drunken texts in the middle of the road, trying desperately to explain the joy of sunlight on the horizon.

Tomorrow, how waking will be painful. Today, how much more worth it makes the insouciance.

Tremulous

Do not fall asleep, you must not fall asleep, you know the damage it will do, I repeated to myself to no avail. Two hours later, revived just in time to watch appropriate bed times pass by impossibly, I happily tackled the mountain of dirty dishes in the kitchen sink. The coffee cup full of abandoned cigarettes, the smell reminds me of your mouth, I reluctantly replace it with the smell of detergent and lemon. She returns from Africa and says It's odd. Empty. Cold. It feels like hell, and I am ashamed to be so happy to have her near again.

The heavy cloak of January drapes itself softly over our aloof senses; everyone is lost and stumbling. Yet at the edges, the slightest flicker of light. Today I thought I must write and it was the first time in weeks. I rejoiced as though over a returned lamb and held the thought close to my chest all day. I must write. This winter, this unending darkness, it steals my life from me, my inspiration, my determination. But our one power over the season is that it will pass, and we will not. One day, the evening will be long and we will forget we ever doubted, we ever feared.

The light at the edges reminds me. I take a deep breath, grit my teeth, and I wait.

Gehenna

A quiet fog lies across my eyelids; it is light, not unpleasant. My limbs follow a similar lethargy, slowly sifting around the room trying to clean up the inexplicable mess of the late night. How much wine was consumed, how many cigarettes smoked, in between the carefully scripted lines of truth that evaporated into the cold night air through an open window. Their remains lay scattered on the windowsill, like reminders of navigating edges of candor you so rarely let anyone enter. Sleep was restless, full of odd dreams that mimicked reality to uselessness and you count down the hours until you must rise again.

It just brings up so much other stuff, you know? she says into the phone. That I hate to be alone. Not on my own, but alone. And what am I supposed to do with my life? The outlook looks bleak, what a cruel month for heartache. I discover a new bruise on my arm. Tomorrow the new year begins.

Tomorrow, everything can change.

Reasons to Stay, Reasons to Go

A strange front rolled itself over the city last night. After a day of sunshine, of real true sunshine and blue skies and light steps, dark clouds boiled at the edges and turned the buildings inside out. We sat on a couch and considered growing bellies, crooked relationship patterns and inevitable futures, and I felt my heart sink into a dark pit at the bottom of my feet. She spoke to me at the bar, but I can't remember what was said and the lights were too bright to really look her in the eyes. I rode the bus home with demons at my side, they licked their fingers and made jokes at my expense while I tried composing sentences that made sense. It is only January, they will go away, this will all pass with the coming of Spring, one day you will smile again and mean it, it's only now I'm so tired, so tired. I lay trembling in bed, the body paralyzed by exhaustion but my head unable to sleep, and saw the labyrinth of life convulsing and contorting itself ahead of me. Another turn added, another obstacle, they are always the same. I slept, eventually, but by morning the blue skies had passed and no change had been wrought.

It's only now
I'm so tired. 

of These Ghost Towns

The office was quiet, calm, but I came in late like a bulldozed pile of rubble; I do not sleep when I need to. The hours dragged on so slowly, but steadily, the job a reliable oasis in a sea of unknowns. She called last night crying. I don't know if I can save him from himself. Life isn't worth much when you don't remember what it is to have hope. The skies cleared tonight, but the afternoon was already dark and it was impossible to see.

The small of my back aches; I must have slept crookedly. We all prefer dark, dusty corners when the spotlight finds out our flaws and throws them in our face, it is as it was. Today, all is death, no matter. Spring will return, the sun will make the spotlight fade to nothing.

2013.

The days pass in a blur. The alcohol drips through my body like self-prescribed medication and breaks down coherence and defenses alike. Nothing aligns, no plans are made, the days rush at me like vicious nightmares that tear at my flesh while I am unable to reach them, but I laugh, laugh and run madly in the streets with open bottles and illegible cell phone messages in my hands.

By the time we sit in the busy coffeeshop and catch up, the new year is already old and I am painfully behind schedule. He speaks to me of Russia, of cold winters and difficult plans. He mimics someone else's drunken words the night before and says Just go. It's what you want. There is time. For a short while, I pretended life could be different, that the deep circle of my days which I have paved into the road would be as easy to step out of as the old year that passes, inevitably, with joy. But his words echo in me as I walk home, and I know the circle perpetuates itself. That I will run tirelessly around it. I will pack those bags, clean up this apartment until no trace of me remains, stand in an airport terminal with teary eyes and bubbling heart. This is the bed in which I lie; the sheets are torn and the pillows smell of you, but I made it this way and one day how sweet the sleep will be. Your new year's letter writes careful words of an uncertain future. She knew nothing of tomorrow; she seems hellbent on keeping it that way.

All I really hope is that you are around to read this letter next year. That you are not a shell. That you are not numb.
Life is too good to waste. 
I hope you are happy.