C11

I am at an airport again. How many hours have I spent in these sterile halls, staring out of windows, going through the motions of departure and arrival. There was a time, before the attacks on the towers, when your loved ones could come all the way to the mouth of the airplane to greet you. How many tears have been cried, how many laughs and desperate embraces at these gates. When I was eleven, and for the first time flying trans-Atlantic without my parents, the plane had an engine malfunction and we sat on the freezing tarmac of a Canadian military base for twelve hours. They showed us all the entertainment they could: two movies, instead of the usual one. They flew us down to New York for a new plane, it was my first time in the city and we could see the Statue of Liberty from the hotel window. 

From LaGuardia you can see most of the skyline when you wait for your plane. There's an April sun out, warming the skin as you walk and I wonder why I'm leaving. The winter of 2006 was the same way, people sun-tanning in New York while the rest of the country froze. He tells me he sleeps with the windows open and it's still too warm. 

When you sit at a gate

You want for nothing. 

Rememberance

(If you ever forget,
what it is you are meant to be doing,
it is this:
spend your days, in silent solitude,
spend your nights, in raging song
across typewriter keys ,
in unraveling stories
against sleepless hours,
with no care
for anything
that lies beyond
for anything
that is
not
the word,
spend your life
writing,

and all
will
be well.)

Your Name in the Sky

Winter is warm, impossibly mild. I sit in the kitchen with the window wide open, smoking slow drags into the quiet night. The neighbors across the courtyard have had a dinner party; they clear empty bottles from the terrace while the lanterns flicker and die. The Big Day is still ahead of them.

I spoke with the ghosts of Brooklyn past today, all snug and tipsy in a faraway land. I tell them nothing lasts forever, but he reminds me that I already said that once and it turned out to be wrong. Did I not pack my bags? Did I not return to the city that is my home to find that I sleep better at night, that I smile better in my heart? So lightly they tread their news grounds, unwilling to believe their circumstance. It may change yet. I still count my blessings louder when we're through.

You asked me if I'd thought about it, and I lied when I said I hadn't. It's all I can do not to hold my breath until passing out; it's all I can do to remember putting one foot in front of the other in the street. I suppose I fear admitting it, and finding I could just as well stay writhing on the ground.

A new year lies waiting.
Be the change you wish in others.
You know not yet where your steps may lead.

A Fair Game

It's a trick of the lights, waiting for the train to arrive in the tunnel, imagining a brighter light there in the depth but deceived. Perpetually tempted to step into the dark and see what lies beyond. 

I started a new story yesterday, the dusty scent of the typewriter keys offering inspiration long lost and you revel in the delicious catharsis of beating out stories into the night. He calls from France, you remember a panicked run through the streets of Lyon and how different the world looked in youth. How you thought the early years were the summit, when truly you've never been more lost. 

His eyes tug and pull at your heart strings, and you wish you might abandon your half written stories for other futures completely. 

But I walked along Lexington avenue tonight, all frosted skies and twinkling skyscraped lights, and I thought there is no place, there is no person, I could ever love as much as I love walking these streets. 

It's a terrible hand, but I'll play. I may be bluffing, but I'll smile till the chips run out. 

Yours To Keep

(Honey, it's harder now that it's over)

Another hangover rattles in your evaporating skin: every move is a challenge to equilibrium, and you spend hours counting seconds until it passes. The weekend is over in the blink of an eye and you think of those words she wrote, that a day is long but a year is short. Your life is almost over, but those damn seconds took forever, until you could stand up without puking. Walk past the Rockefeller Christmas tree with brunch drinks in your veins and smile at Midtown in winter sun--it's so god damned pretty, when it tries.

I cleaned the desk today, with its piles and piles of typewritten pages, an extra stack beneath the books, too. There was a manifesto in its folds, full of typos and ink smudges, of course, but with words so overwhelming I forgot I had remembered to feel them once.

Winter is coming, it is dark and long and terrifying, and life is moving so quickly it will be over soon and I haven't even become anything yet. But I walk these streets in great long strides, with my feet firmly planted on the island, back straight and eyes clear, and nothing has ever made me feel more real than this.

I thought you should know that.

All is not lost,
that does not know its way
(so long as it is moving,
at all)

IV

(I thought of you today, in that way which I rarely allow myself. It ate at my gut and left my knees weak. We stood shivering in Bryant Park this morning and I thought New York is home even in rainy fog, but I haven't the answer to anything else.

I was hoping you might. But I fear I am mistaken.)

Pata Pata

He writes from Cape Town, all traveled wonder and gratitude for the leap. There is sunshine in his words, music, and that delectable feeling when you are overwhelmed by the unexpected. You ask him if a life after New York is possible, and he speaks of adventure in return. 

The sun sets so early in the land up north. The sky turns black while you are on the train and you forget it is still the middle of the day. Fight the will to hibernate and vow to open your windows to madness, instead. Ignore the implications of turning into a tragic stereotype of romantic comedy homecomings. 

Be where you are, now. Be somewhere better, eventually. 

Even if it takes dark days to get there. 

Gratitude, Year IV

Today, as we sat there in silence, a soft stream of sunlight sifted in through the windows onto the white coffin at the front of the room, the pink roses dancing in the light. We spoke joyous words of oft-repeated stories, remembered a turn of phrase, held each others' hands. 

Life passes, without fail. It begins anew and it ends. It is how we love people that lingers. 

This year, 

I am thankful 

for her. 

EWR

There's a certain light that hits Manhattan at twilight, a deep golden shimmer that doesn't exist anywhere else. It will take your breath away every time. It may be the only reason to ever leave the city at all, come to think of it. 

You walk the same steps as usual, you could walk them in your sleep, from Morton to Penn to the airport to the gate. Everything follows its usual pattern and you breathe deep sighs of relief the whole way. If you could live your life at an airport you think you might. There is no joy in this trip, no excited reunions or eternal summer days. You stare at the glowing ember of a city from the gate and your heart fills with joy at imminent returns. That living here is a gift you keep giving yourself, and each repeated moment of unwrapping its crinkled papers is as sweet as the first. 

We must count our blessings every day. They grow in our hearts even when we forget them, they linger long after sunset has passed. 

They remain, when another morning wakes us. 

(But I Don't Know What to Say)

Sunday night, 34th street and the air is growing warmer by the minute, you can't explain it. He runs out of a taxi and you decide there's still time for a drink because we can't go in there sober. There's the usual anticipation, the unstoppable giggles in your chest when his rock'n'roll hair walks out onto the stage. Someone closer to the stage is smoking pot: great giant puffs float out over the crowds.

And then there is a moment, when he sings that song you've heard in the back of your head since the millennium was new, and it was a song that was yours and no one else's. You sat there on the patio of one of your first apartments in life, so young and unsure, with nowhere to go but forward, listening to his words and thinking One day I will move to New York and all the rest will follow. You moved to New York, listened to his song and thought No matter what else I do in life, I am here now.

I stared up at the strobe lights and let everything else wash away. There were no crowds around me, no Monday morning ahead; there was no deep, aching longing for skin that will never touch mine like I wish it would, and no shattered sense of feeling half of a whole.

I do not need anything else, I thought into the void, I do not need anyone else.

This adventure is mine, and mine alone.

Correspondence

Jack Daniels
Sour Mash Whisky

in a hotel mini bar-size version
plastic
but just as wretched and godawful
as you recall
and yet you send it rushing down your
throat
hoping it will chase away demons
(or dreams -
you do not know)

Do not ask questions
to which you are not prepared
to hear the answer.

No good comes
from moments of bravery
followed by eons
of fear.

Next Episode

Are you ready for another drink? he says, and we nod before we have the chance to think about it. Hours later, we fall out onto St Mark's and feign thievery at the place with the cotton candy. It's all a ruse.

The City has turned cold, of late. I run along the river with chattering teeth, only a few scattered joggers left in the wind. The golden yellow Morton Street gingkos shed their fur overnight, and winter arrives like a slap in the face. But I walk home across a pitch black Washington Square Park, cutting across MacDougal into Minetta Lane to that short, quiet stretch where you think you're in another place completely. I rolled a cigarette in the middle of the street and thought there is no other place I would rather be.

It's hard to be so sure of just one thing,
and doubt exactly everything else
about life.

That You Choke

I spend the evening cleaning out my sock drawer. Inspect items of clothing too old and tattered to wear, fold the pieces that pass inspection into neat piles and return them to their designated spots, knowing full well that I'm only trying to clear out the cob webs of my tired soul and failing miserably. At least the neatly arranged drawers offer some sense of accomplishment.

There's an autobiography on my nightstand, a successful actress who was young in the 60s; she spends her days battling misogyny and eating disorders, channels her inner soul in exchange for fame, envelops herself entirely in passionate obsessions, and you know the root to all success lies in such dedication. I can't remember the last time I buried myself in anything with passion; instead, I'm buried in apathy, and it leaves a far more bitter taste in my mouth.

Perhaps there is something else we should be doing. Perhaps we've gotten it all wrong and this was not the be-all, end-all of our endeavors. Perhaps I should have moved to Australia years ago, spent my days  harvesting mangoes and my evenings drinking beer on the beach, caring little of ephemeral promises and profound literal ambitions. What use is there to scratch and claw against my exhausted skin, to scream myself bloody in the vacuum void of urban indifference? I don't belong in your clique; I don't know why I've fought so hard to get in.

A lifetime seems too long
to be suffering.

Don't Be Scared

It's okay now. It's over.

And even knowing what she was going to say couldn't stop me from falling apart when she did.

Do you remember that afternoon, in the hospital, when you'd had such trouble with the words, such a hard time remembering who I was or why you were held captive in this confusing mansion where you didn't know a soul? I sat and held you for hours in silence until the worst of the fog passed, and when I mentioned your favorite poem, you began reciting it like your mind was clear as day? I read it to you then, even though it was hard through the tears, and we stared out the window at the turning leaves and smiled. When I told you I loved you that day, you understood what it meant.

We've been reading that poem for years, did you remember that? Those late nights in your living room, passing the the little book of poetry that once was your mother's between us, saying you read it just one more time, before eventually going to sleep. Do you remember the way we all inherited your giggle and your silly mannerisms against our will, but how we never tried to get rid of them, once we had? Do you know we think of you every time we find ourselves buying flowers on Friday or leaving the last piece of food on a serving tray?

You loved me with every fiber of your little body, because you knew no other way to love. When you laughed, you lit up the room, and when you'd made up your mind, no rhyme or reason could change it. When we spoke on the phone, we'd talk about pulling out a gigantic pair of scissors and cutting the country in two, so we could glue the pieces together next to each other and not be so far apart. I always hoped there'd be a day when it would be true.

Do you remember the time you picked me up from preschool and we ate licorice lozenges as we walked home hand in hand? Or when I'd discovered Tom Lehrer and gave you silly concerts you probably hardly understood, and you encouraged every infantile story I wrote you? Do you remember our constant dilemma of choosing different paths through the woods for our walks, and how we pretended to live in all the beautiful Victorian houses along the river? How you told me tales of growing up in the north, of Stockholm in the 40s, how you taught me to obsessively pat the little wooden Buddha's belly on my way out the door because my mother had done it her whole childhood and the knock of the wood against the banister was engrained in my steps down those stairs? Do you remember how you named the lawn mower and laughed when we said goodnight because and you'll be here when I wake up tomorrow? was such a lovely luxury we afforded each other? Will you remember that now that you're gone?

Because I will.

As Per

An immense hangover passes through my insides. It shakes the cogs into new spaces, makes the machine work at other angles. Once the fog clears, how easy it all seems.

I know it's the darkness of fall. I know it's the usual wave of my two-year turnovers that make the pieces fall so easily into place. The temptation of something New.

But if what you're doing isn't working,

What's the harm in trying something Else?

Hemingways

You should just quit, he says, empty your bank accounts and run yourself into the ground and then, then you will write.

The Chelsea bar fills up, slowly. Early Friday night and it's on both your train lines: you have such a limited amount of time and want to savor the moment. I could have sat along that glossy wooden bar until closing.

He's right, of course. I have been there before. In the gut-wrenching sludge of poverty, finding the words sing better in misery. When you're already off the edge of the cliff and racing head-first toward the bottom, you have nothing left to lose, no time to worry about anything but pulling out of your innards every last word you could possibly have left to leave.

November rolls over your brow like a wet blanket. You shed the last frail dreams of summer, the last vestiges of hope and reckless abandon.

Stand at the precipice and shrug.

Not Lean

West Harlem, Tuesday night and something comforting about the dirty streets, about the ridiculous blinking lights on Broadway a hundred streets up only advertising top level delis. Something in the way people in the neighborhood make you feel more assimilated than a hundred west village propers ever seem to. You are reminded this city will have room for you even in poverty, even in despair. It's a large island: there is space. She speaks of the country you left, of a job you know so well and blank stares you haven't missed. 

There's a reason you left. There's a reason you longed for these crooked cobblestones when you had everything left to lose. 

It's just you and me, now, you say into the dark tunnel, as the 1 train careens down Manhattan. You wish you felt sorry. 

You feel complete, instead. 

Solder

The smell of burned flesh, a jackhammer ripping through your heavy breaths and he tells you the price but at least he lets you swear as much as you want. Your boss sends you texts late into the night; you sleep with one eye open and you never meant to.

You stand alone on the platform with a toothache and shivering skin. November has been mild, so far, the sun shone today and I walked with my jacket open. It doesn't help. I'm falling apart all over the place.

And all I want to do is cry.

Metaphor

November arrives like a sledge hammer. Daylight Savings sweeps an immense darkness over the city, as you know it will every year; it doesn't hurt any less when it does. There's a bitter wind flying down Seventh Avenue, you wrap your jacket tighter but it sharpens your vision against your will.

But here's the thing: you don't have the option of summer in November. You don't have a million tropical days spread before you in an endless field of opportunity, each more delightful than the next. So if the autumn day is cold, with wind like ice on your skin and the night an ominous threat along the horizon, but the sun is shining, then you owe it to yourself to go out there and stand in it. Let the bright rays beam straight into your eyes, let them fill you to the brim with gratitude of the things you do have. You may have to stretch your limbs to reach the light.

But it sure beats whiling away your days in the dark.

Will Call

It's a cruel craft. Pages upon pages of words and mere morsels of any worth, at best. There's a short turn of phrase on page 15 that makes you smile softly in your chest but you're ready to throw out the following 24. I spent the day in sweatpants, tucked away in a corner of the room with the phone silent, the computer focused. There's a slow feeling along the inside of my skin that says this is who you are. I spend so much time playing pretend with the rest of the world.

I only hope it's worth it.

Meet Gasoline

Sixth avenue, Friday afternoon, the wide street buzzing with anticipation. Groups of policemen chatting amongst themselves, workers lining the sidewalk with barricades. On side streets, the floats are being assembled. A woman in a cat costume passes, little children in furry one-pieces and ethereal wings. He writes from across the oceans in exclamation points and exhaustion. Your heart dances in his smile, remembers what it is what it is to love something until you collapse. In your gut lie so many puzzle pieces. 

You wonder what glue will piece them together at last. 

Take It Off

The tome of collected poems is faded along the spine. It spent all summer in my window. Newer paperbacks lie strewn around the room, piles upon piles of paper, and notebooks, and post-its. I am not, without these collections of ink.

I fear I have spoken too much of my love for them, have waxed poetic in too many useless social situations and diluted the power they have over my muscles. That the idea of being a writer somehow became more important than actually being one. That I was too tempted by peoples' adoring eyes to remember they are not the prize, nor reason enough to fight.

An old neighbor came to visit today; he stood on my stoop and greeted me like a dear friend. This neighborhood was always too nice, I lived here but couldn't afford to do anything, you know? His new spot in the East Village was a little noisier, perhaps, without a stoop and the walls so thin, but it was his now, and was ready to love it. I think perhaps I have sunk so far into this neighborhood, that I will never know how to leave. Feel the moss grow between my toes.

Constantly expect the earth to erupt beneath me.

From the Chandelier

The silence has avoided me. It scurries away into unreachable corners while my days rage in overflowing appointment books. I run alongside the Red Queen and watch the landscape stand entirely still. It will catch up, a haunting voice repeats in the back of my head. When at last it arrives, does it not bring a month worth of venomous sludge with it, sinking into my every pore and drowning me in its thick dark matter? I scrub the bathroom tiles until my fingers bleed, my lungs give out, I turn the music up and draw out the demons from their hiding places, watch them yawn and stretch until they are ready to dance.

There were so many kind faces on the screen today, so many voices weighing in and offering their support, or their words of warning. You can look to others for answers all you like; the life, in the end, is yours alone to live. The evening grows cold. I wrap myself in layers of chain mail, feel the heavy, cold metal bear down on my skin, and the lightness that comes with it. Once again I've gotten so close to the wide and straight path, the correct steps, once again I've tasted the fresh air of a life on the inside.

But I recognize myself more with grime under my fingernails. Dance better with the foul ghosts of mildewy margins. There's a kerosene storage in my gut.

I am done trying to do the right thing.

It is time to burn this whole place
to the ground.

Tracks

The next manhattan bound L train will depart in approximately, eight minutes.

I never ride the train into Brooklyn anymore. What is there left here for me to see? I remember a summer, years ago and Williamsburg was a different place then, except exactly the same. I just don't have anyone to visit anymore. 

I walked up fifth avenue to work today, such bone-chilling cold creeping into my senses but the air clear and the view of the Empire State uncluttered. So many times I lose my footing and it remains, unwavering, to remind me of my purpose with this life and with this city. 

You are here to love the city

And to write. 

As long as you do that, 

You are winning the war. 

I am ready

to resume my place

in the battlefield. 

Starlight

Running will be good for your writing, he says, all that oxygen to your brain. I stared out across the New Jersey skyline, the pier freezing cold and empty. Deep breaths ran through my body and cleared out the dredges of a day, of a week. But he is wrong, I thought.

Perhaps age has calmed the rages of my inner turmoil. My demons cozy up in quiet corners and pay me no attention;  I miss them violently. Friends from faraway arrive in the city with their ringed fingers and neatly arranged lives and I forget to remember it was not what I wanted. I don't know why I fight so hard for things that were never mine to own. If it isn't broken, don't fix it.

I fear broken was best
I'd ever get.

But I Am.

It rains. Great torrential downpours that travel into the courtyard like waterfalls. There's a soft rush to the water, not like October weather at all but like summer rain the kind that makes you laugh and run in it until your clothes stick to your skin and it doesn't matter. The ether frazzles, there's static on the line and you paint the silence in dark colors. It's been so warm this week and November seems improbable. I don't have the answers.

I was hoping you might.

Taken

I swear I can be better
I could be more
to you

My father calls. He lies in a bed in his own father's house. We speak of life and what we are making of it.

You can do better, he says, and you will not be satisfied until you do. It doesn't take a genius to see he is right, but sometimes it takes a while for truths to sink in. You've known all along, if you think about it. There's a quiet moment as a cool autumn wind settles in the Village, pieces begin to fall into place. I write lists, finally, the impending days of my life dancing before me like Sylvia Plath quotes and I love them infinitely, dripping off my tongue into dark October nights and I just know it will all be alright.

I don't know why you've been so quiet for so long. I'm sorry. A piece of my tooth fell out today, like a bad dream. What is it they say it means, when you dream of losing teeth? I imagine riches or despair but in the end it comes down to holding out for dental insurance.

I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart. I am, I am, I am.

Better, you think quietly to yourself. Yes, this is the time for better. 

On Love

Here, I made you breakfast to bring on the train, she says, handing over a bag of food in the dark morning though she should be sleeping. Another friendly face on the tram, as dawn slowly creeps a golden light over the city I once called my home, and the misty rolling landscape outside the train window overwhelms me for hours. 

I came to them in tatters this week, broken by sorrow and bloodshot eyes, without so much as an ounce of social graces in my repertoire, and I found them with nothing but open arms in return. They prepared dinner, made me coffee and poured my wine. They listened for hours to my same circles and held me patiently as I gathered courage for another day. 

If I could sit there, hold her hand, and tell her I would make it all better for her, it was only because they put me back together when I fell apart. If I did anything right this week, it was all their doing. 

If I did anything right this life, it was loving these people, and letting them love me in return. Do not be mistaken:

Love

is what is home. 

Hospitable.

I'm scared, she said, crying into a borrowed shirt with the hospital logo on it. If I close my eyes to sleep, I won't ever wake up again. I sat and held her, for hours on end, these fragile hands so crumpled with time and I cried, too, it couldn't be helped. My whole life she has been there, she gave me that silly giggle we can't seem to silence, she gave me love for flowers, and gratitude for simple things. I read her that poem we both like so much, the one about two lovers condemned to live on opposite ends of the universe but who built a bridge of stars to reach one another; she knew the first few lines by heart, and I cried the whole way through.

Sometimes she looks like she sees the ghost of death on the ceiling, come to take her away and she is not ready to go. Most days she does not remember why she is there, and certainly not that I've been there to see her before. But how did you know where to find me?! she exclaims. Can you please take me home now? and it pains me every time I have to say no.

There was a moment, yesterday, after she had slept for a bit and we just sat there in silence. She looked me straight in the eyes and said thank you. When I told her I loved her, the words seemed to mean exactly everything they were supposed to, and we rested contentedly against one another, knowing that we had said what we needed.

Life ends in such ugly ways.

We must live
in poetry
while we can.

Rest

"Welcome home," the bus driver said as I fumbled to find the right transit card and drag my bag to a seat. It was all I could to do keep from crying into his kind face. Dawn slowly rose over Stockholm, as the heavy autumn fogs lifted from the trees, and I didn't know if I was happy to be there or sad. People looked the same, only with more clothing than before, their cheeks flushed with the cold season. I sank into the comforts of people I know and love. They will carry me through every dreaded step of this journey. My phone rang in the noisy bar (the one in the building I used to call home; it was such a strange scene to be there), and she said Don't be surprised if she doesn't make it. We don't want her to feel any more pain. I just wanted you to be prepared. 

Thirty-six hours pass with no sleep. I am so tired I no longer make sense. But when the lights are finally out, the room is finally quiet, I do not drift away. I cannot. 

Whatever will come now, will come. I lean against the outstretched arms around me. Trust in the space where I may fall. 

Redeye

"We need you to come home."

New York disappears in a blur behind me, miles of tunnel and we are unearthed in a gray New Jersey landscape, fitting the mood. It rains.

The airport looks as it always does, the tense vibrating air over people's heads, the way smoke lingers curbside. How many times have I stood on these polished floors, tingling in anticipation, calm in its familiarity? Today my nerves wrought the air out of my lungs; I couldn't see the peace for all the darkness that lay ahead. 

I make plans for arrival. Invite myself to beds and couches of those who love me. Their open arms bring tears to my eyes, but it might just be the trip. The airplane lights turn off. New York disappears under billowing clouds. 

I will not sleep. 

I need me to go home. 

Free. Falling.

Hours while away in useless catatonia, as I lie staring at the trees turn yellow in the courtyard. I know the to-do list runs long; I know the weekends are short. My stomach grumbles, the ache deep within won't ease up, and I have resigned myself to carrying it where I go. I create monsters and ghouls in my mind, they whisper their ugly stories in my ears and scream at my senses until I pass out again. 

When I wake, the sun has set over the chilly courtyard on Morton Street. My room is still a mess. But I feel something align itself along the base of my spine, a deep tingle making its way to my fingertips: the makings of Words. As I sit down at the typewriter, they begin to bubble in me, they race like a rash along my skin before bursting out onto the white pages in splatters of insight and clarity. I catch glimpses of a person I had nearly forgotten, of a purpose I've long been too tired to dare remember having. I fill the French press when I should be having dinner, turn up the music until it drowns out everything else, and type so fast it makes the machine smell of burning dust and warm ink. 

For the first time in a long time, I recognize my reflection in the window. It may not be pretty, disheveled from neglect as it is, but it is more me than I have felt in ages. It is as I have always known. 

The Word will set us free. 

The Word will render us

invincible.

In Vain

(...I will close the door now, lock it firmly and convince myself I am better off imprisoned within my own solitary walls than standing outside a house on fire. 

The homeless have such a cold time of it, during winter)

Tumble

The great darkness descends upon me.

It seems too soon. It is only September. It is still warm in the afternoon, I still have a tan line on my hips, did I not swim laps in their backyard pool today, it is too soon. Perhaps it was your voice in my ears; I should have known better than to listen to it, it vibrates through my insides, I am reminded of deceit and the uncertainty of the footing beneath us. The hour is late but I want to never sleep. I want to make large pots of coffee and scream across the typewriter keys. The floor is covered in debris already, I can barely make it across the room to get out. Tomorrow looms like a threat on the horizon. Days to come, and days to follow, one after another. Do not be fooled. Our only redemption is art.

I felt such an immense comfort tonight, crossing the George Washington Bridge again, landing safely on island ground and coasting down the West Side Highway toward the cluster of skyscrapers in the south. I rode the southbound one train through its innards, felt the warm air of the metropolis sift slowly through my lungs. I thought to myself I never want to leave, and I knew in my heart it was true.

Your voice can't reach me here. It can't hurt me, like it did.

This city will drown you out,
too.

Vale

We leave the city with the sunset. New Jersey turns peach-colored across the water, as the Empire State Building shrinks in the distance. My little city. It looks so frail from afar, and it doesn't add up with the towering force I know it to be up close. 

Palisades parkway lies dark at the other edge of the bridge, as night spreads a heavy blanket across the suburban land. Your phone loses reception, the air is thick with cricket song. The chill in the air seems appropriate; you forget it was ever summer. Their house smells like America. You know you'll sleep like you were home. 

We all grew up somewhere. Wherever we go after is just a symptom. 

You think I forget. 

I remember. 

Inside

I can show it to you, he says, but there is nothing out there except blackness. Still, he indulges you, and you join him for a cigarette on the balcony in a city whose name you cannot pronounce, in a land you will probably never visit. He calls later to say he cannot sleep, so you stay on the line until he does. They call from other time zones still, the sun bright in the West Coast afternoon, and you miss his laugh, the way his little hand fit around yours as you rode that G train up and down the Brooklyn tracks.

Life turns out to be more farewells sometimes than you can handle. You chose these globetrotters to be your most precious riches because they inspire you to be better than you are, but they are perpetually too far away, forever tugging at your heartstrings, and you wonder if there will ever be people you do not lose.

Who you do not leave behind,
when you run.

eleven

We sat by the river and watched the glowing, late-summer sun set over New Jersey beyond. It is so far uptown, I can't believe it's the same river, the same stroke of flood that passes Morton Street only eighty blocks down. The promenade was full of after-work runners, of a thousand dog owners and two children in pajamas. We drank our sangria and enjoyed the chill.

Later, I ran along the now-dark waters, the New Jersey skyline glittering beyond and sending menacing  lights into the low clouds. The water was high; it looked like one, flat, black carpet stretching to the other shore and one could easily step over the railing and run away. They had the memorial lights on when I came home from work, twin spires beating out into the vast emptiness above, but they were black again by the time I went out. The day comes every year. As it passes.

The city breathes,
perpetually.

and Give Me Some Time

Let's be done early, she says, and you can't believe the delight in cramming in with regular rush hour train riders. There's an ebb and flow to the station at Times' Square that soothes your soul as you ride the current; there's a certain hum to New York at its maddest that calms you to the core. You feel it, and know instantly you cannot breathe without it.

The host is all smiles as you arrive at the tiny restaurant; you've squeezed in many times before, you know it is worth the wait. There is a sparkle in your eye, you know he sees it, and the energy pulsates through your drinks, your laughter at the wooden bar, the way you look people in the eyes. It is not your own doing: New York breathes through you and makes every decision easy. You know he may ask a future of you one day, but it will not be yet. It will not be now.

Now, you are invincible.

Now, you are free.

Easy, Tiger.

She lies sleeping at the bottom of your bed, drawing deep breaths into the still night around you. The air is cold outside your window, the season's first chill and it seems early, however welcome. I sat a whole day and a whole night in front of that screen, forgetting to eat, forgetting to move, and my joints hurt. There is a gray haze that spreads across my face in the afternoon. I'm glad you cannot see it; I don't recognize myself in the haze. I spent so many years fighting against a quiet enemy I never knew. Now I punch in and out with the clock, spend my spare moments recovering, and I don't know how I succumbed after all. This is not in our cards, my dear, this momentary weakness will not trump our mad vagabond airs and dreams of creative freedom. We will find the road, yet, and we will not go gentle into that good night. We will run the road, we will rage.

But I'm fractured,
from the fall. 

(And I want to go home.)

Week's End.

He smiles in his sleep. Mouths unintelligible whispers into the dark room while the night lies apprehensively still around. Peace is a fickle companion, but you will take what you can get and at least they haven't cut the power, yet. Thunder rolls across the New York skyline. Perhaps tomorrow will be cooler. 

She brings the new man to the City for inspection. We drink margaritas and make jokes, traverse the city in difficult questions and silly banter, and I see in her eyes that he means something. Outside approval holds nothing to that. 

Your inner demons lie quiet, in the spaces between, stirring only slightly before returning to rest. Nobody has ever called me a walk in the park before, you hear yourself say. 

But someone has got to be the first. 

Lullabye

Summer lingers, even after its official end. New York takes on its normal air of impossibly thick humidity and damp skin in freezing subway cars. I ran along the river, late to avoid the beating sun but the promenade was full of people, and a jumbled breeze swept into the West Village streets. The Standard Hotel rooftop bar twinkled atop its heavyset, communist block of a building.

There was a moment today, as I stood at the 14th street station (sweat trickling  at the nape of my neck) waiting for the 1, when I looked at the slow-moving sludge between the rails, and heard the sounds of a mad man clapping along the platform, that I was reminded of the magic of this city so vividly. That even in the regular comings and goings of a Tuesday night, with nothing but chores to do, there can be a moment when the mere truth of one's being in this one space is enough to make the hairs on your arm stand on end, send a shiver past that spot behind your ear where everything important gathers.

You are my sweetest downfall. 
I loved you
first. 

August 31, 2006

Eight years ago, today, a stuffed Super Shuttle van drove past the David Letterman marquee in midtown and dropped off a group of tourists, before continuing east to the darker streets of the upper 50s. At the last stop, near 1st avenue, the van purged itself of five young kids with stars in their eyes, looking to start a new chapter of their lives in New York.

I still remember standing on the street with our bags. I remember going to the grocery store under the bridge for breakfast (I found it again years later and was amazed at its presence). I remember the mad scramble the next morning to find a new apartment and how quickly we decided it was ours when we found it. We had drinks on the terrace and New York City was an amazing adventure in the making. I had longed for so many years to be there, and suddenly I was, and it was as though there had never been a time before it.

It is eight years since I first set foot on Manhattan soil, eight years since I first moved here. And at the beginning was it not much infatuation and silly puppy love? Eight years later, it seems I love the city more than I ever knew I could. Have we not grown together, New York, through poverty, and loss, and pure elation? Have we not loved in magic?

The days passed so quickly.
I have loved every one,
because of you.

Bad Hair Day

The outdoor tables at the White Horse Tavern were all full, the evening sweltering. When it began to rain, we sheltered in a little, dry nook as all the other seats emptied and spoke of useless nothings. It was the perfect birthday. The rain passed quickly and by the time I reached Morton street, it had dried out. 

Promise not to worry, he said. Tomorrow I may wake up and find this all to be Russia. Your thinly veiled promises can't keep his voice from melding itself into your veins. I went out later, to a dive bar on 23rd street and it was easy enough to carry on conversation, but didn't my skin tremble a little more than usual? Was my gaze not just a little more distant, in the breaks? Your chest reels at distance, as the silence to come creeps into your periphery. 

You can't help but think the impending fall

may be worth it. 

32

Cajsa, darling, we know nothing of this life. I don't know if this decision was a good one, I don't know if you should be done with New York, or should settle down, or just get over it. I don't know if you'll ever find the answer you are looking for, write that book and make something of it, nor if you'll ever find a home for Forever. 

The thing is, we can't wait around while trying to figure it out. We have to Live, and fucking Try to make something of this existence. Yes, you want the kids, and the cow, and the man you can call home, but living in Stockholm made your skin crawl most of the time, and I don't think it's supposed to do that...

...I have no idea what lies in store for you but more clueless wanderings and struggle. But here's the thing, I believe you do it for a purpose. I believe if it wasn't worth it, you wouldn't do it.

So go to New York, rediscover your word, find a purpose. Be the best person you can be and be her deliriously.

Happy Birthday. 

After Midnight

(Jesus was just a year older when he died, she says, and you both laugh about the upcoming year of Jesus. They ask what the plan is, but all you want is to drink beer at White Horse. They ask of presents, but you shake your head.

Although I will take you,
if you offer.)

from Your Sleep

Sunday night arrives, how quickly it sneaks into your system. You check your work email and see it spilling over into every crevice of the week ahead. Your poor body falls apart from the alcohol that was supposed to mend it. You know you are going about this in all the wrong ways. The days and weeks pile up ahead of you and you haven't the time to think of what they mean.

He books tickets to the African hot zone, to the ends of the Earth, the terrifying adventures tug at your seams and you wonder at the choices you've made. Could you not also have dived into the great unknown? Should you not also be living a life that involves more than ten hours in front of a computer screen and five hours of heavy sleep in a tragic loop? The homeless man on St Marks on Friday said he knew enough friends along the way to make it to Boulder, if he wanted. You thought we can make it to California, if we try, and rolled him an extra cigarette.

The pieces of the puzzle make themselves clear.

You decide when you are ready to put them together.

Rubbish

You write words and they disappear somewhere between 7th avenue and 5th. Drown the rest of it with red wine and stories that mean nothing, after the fact. But you attempt to laugh in all the right places and ignore the images that trickle through your mind. You tell her how the ground dropped from beneath you, but there isn't much to say anymore. It's not long ago, but it feels like a whole other life.

He disappears from the radar.

You do not know how to keep the pulses
from scanning the great dark
beyond.

It's Only an Interview

Here's a crazy idea, she writes, all exclamation points and half-finished sentences, rambling with excitement. Why don't you come out west with us, have a ball, while you're figuring it all out! Their vagabond menagerie moves in waves, attempts to settle, rolls along the crest. My guts tingle with the prospect of getting swept up in the tide, but I work longer hours suddenly than ever before. How amusing the hamster wheel when you do not believe a word it says. You long to write them back, say yes! without hesitation and ride off into the sunset. The front line looks scary from afar.

You dream of it every night,
anyway.

Cosmos

Sunday night

walking down Christopher Street,

rolling a cigarette

    (no filter, all out)

and feeling like

Everything

is okay again,

because these streets under your feet,

this air in your lungs,

a group of kids

    twerking

    and laughing

the air of the subway

    like a slap in the face

and Morton Street quiet

    sweet like a serenade

they are why you came back

they are worth

    your every sad

        separation

and tear

over what you have left behind

They are worth leaving his breathless

    skin

You forget you ever doubted

a hundred nights

a thousand sad miles away

a million other ways your life

    could have gone

but didn't 

because your limbs knew

    (your heart, your gut, your lungs)

that this was the only place

that could only

ever

make you Want

for Nothing

(and it is.)    

Terminal 5

(At some point during the flight, I looked out the window into the vast, black night and saw an immense city grid spread out in all directions, until abruptly cut by the darkness of water. It seemed so human, somehow, the earth viewed from space and did we create all this?)

Peach-colored dawn over Howard Beach in Queens. I'm on that red-eye again, always flying the red-eye into New York and landing as in a whole new world where morning just has broken and all the day lies before us. The A train is full of tired people going to work on a Sunday, and you see the structures, the makeup of the city but you love them for sitting there anyways, because they make up this city and you doubt you'd love it as much without them. The West Village sleeps when you reach it. 

I read a book this week, a delicate piece with unfinished edges but a fine polished sheen of sweat and desperation on it. You adored every word, let them sink in to your pores until you longed for your own words with a beating ache. Late August-New York beckons, with that warm lush air and the makings of a future you've missed since before you knew it existed. 

What dreams could you have?

You are here. 

Pre

Happy Birthday!  they laugh, and the gifts are old running shoes wrapped in fancy papers. We eat lamb, everything from the garden, and she brought the wine she just bottled in California. Life doesn't seem so rough in poverty when it looks like this. Your skin has turned so brown today, and you ran up the mountainside until no oxygen was left in your lungs. Your father asks what your biggest dream is and you narrowly avoid the answer. The stars shine brighter out here; the crickets sing louder. But you miss New York and know that better things are to come.

Because the truth is,
chasing the dream,
is worth more
than knowing what it is
to live it.

Cascade

I put my running shoes on, headed to the edge of the reservoir, where a dusty trail winds along the hillside until forever. But at the last turn I veered, made my way up the trail that is closed in winter, the steep snaking trail that goes straight up the mountain and into the valley beyond. I parked the car in nowhereland, met not another car, another person, only the occasional chipmunk or hawk. It's so quiet out here you can hear your mind scream. Sometimes I think what I love most about New York is it drowns out the voices in my head. I'm proud of you, she said, and you realize you've built a family around you that will not disappear, that you will not lose even as you run to the ends of the earth. 

We cannot change what has come before. 

But we can make our own trails

to follow. 

Hide Your Fires

There was a storm brewing along the mountain peaks as I made my way through the pass. The air was sweltering, unusually humid, pressing. The radio played songs from more ignorant times, but it kept coming and going in waves of static. I kept it on; sometimes silence is too encroaching.

It is too hard to say the words, sometimes. I spent most of the evening staring into the hardwood floors, trying to choose my steps wisely, biting my lip to keep calm. I imagine what finally came out stung unexpectedly, and I wish I didn't have to say it.  He would not speak to me, after.

They ask why you are broken.

But you are too busy picking up the shards,
to not think the fault is yours.

Grace

(You say, you have no home. That the years spent tearing from one place to another pulled the home right out of you, and that you spend your days desperately drifting to reclaim what was never yours. But it is not true.
It begins when you cross that last mountain range, and see the familiar valleys spread out underneath the plane. It's in the smell of damp earth under midnight sprinklers, in the sounds of crickets, in the way the sun shines so impossibly bright but the air is dry like desert. It's in the slight lull of your accent, a lingering twang that appears with the first stranger you meet.
This is the land where you grew up. This is where you found a voice to speak with, a soil to plant your roots in, a strange tapestry into which to sew your heart. For better, and for worse, this is the place: this is home.)

Far Rockaway

Two minutes before the alarm rings, you wake with a start. 03:58. How you tossed and turned in the dark last night, counting hours and subtracting minutes of precious sleep. Try it again, with feeling.

The west village lies sleeping outside your door. The last scattered remnants of drunk Saturday night youths lie strewn around pizza slice joints and 24-hour tobacconists. The lack of tourists is gratifying, the abundance of empty seats on the train. The construction reroute doesn't worry you; you've gone in and out of these airports a hundred times already. Last night looking at old pictures and realizing just how long New York has painted itself as the magic backdrop to what you thought was such a useless life. 

Dawn rises slowly

over John F. Kennedy airport. 

You decide to forget everything

that has come before.

Paint your life

only

in magic. 

Allez Retour

You'll never make that connection, she says, and you know she is right. I can put you on the first flight out in the morning. So you take your bags, your new slip of airfare paper and make your way back through Queens. The streets smell of unknown foods, the store signs in strange symbols; you think perhaps you do not need to move to the ends of the earth--it's enough just to move to Queens. New York is your pearl, again it redeems itself and you never doubted it would.

A voice travels to you from across the ocean, with that velvety lull to it that softens your resolve and makes you smile at the ceiling. You vow to save your pennies.

Whatever happens,
an airplane ticket can save your life,
every time.

In August

Asocial isolation ends with a bang, much sooner than expected. Every night is a new round of margaritas in the velvet evenings, and you stumble home to your messy room and fall asleep with your clothes in another pile on the floor. You see yourself building a life in New York, again, starting at the bottom with the scattered bricks that remain from previous attempts and glueing the base with endless optimism and maybe this time it's all different. Perhaps without ignorance you would simply resign yourself to passing out in the mud, so you allow it to create your futures for you.

They write you from their new life, with a void the size of New York City in their chests, and they do not yet know how to fill it with anything else. How long ago it seems now that the City was new and our every step on its pavement delicate. Now you walk like you are invincible and can never fall off. It seems an impossible prize. Try not to think about it. He sends you pictures of sunset over the open sea, but you no longer know what it means.

All you know is concrete.
All you need is here.

And You Had Time

If you look at the lamp posts in the park, and you find this number here, you'll always know what street level you're on. Her young voice trembled with excitement as she ran circles around me in the Ramble. New York is hot, again, I recognize its air now when I walk home late at night and it feels like a sweet concession. They offer me a job over margaritas; every day life is a new twist and turn to follow. I booked an airplane ticket yesterday but it didn't leave the usual ripple. The addiction deepens.

She says she'll come as soon as she can. That she will live in my room of teapots and work a dive job and we can spend the nights creating and practicing our tobacco habits. You can't help but think it an inviting idea. You think perhaps it just might be the best way to live a life.

Just look at the lights. You'll always know where you are.

Upon Your Shore

Every morning I wake, too early, with a panicked feeling in my lungs, and do not know where I am. Feel the window fan across my feet, hear the dog pacing outside the cardboard door, fit the pieces together until the image is clear. She writes to say that they are sailing around the world but are landing in the city for a week and would you like to come out to play. You consider stowing away in their boat, instead. He writes from Morocco, but you've dulled your senses now, and you refuse to paint the pictures in your mind.

I return to the little room on Morton like an inert whirlwind, desperate to commit but perpetually torn from its comforts, rasping my nails against dresser drawers and crumbling walls at the gusts. You belong here, they say, but you don't know what it means to belong anywhere. Some days you think perhaps you don't actually need to.

Always keep your bags packed, your storages cleared. Never be weighed down by the comforts of a familiar bed. Run madly into the world and live to tell the tale. Perhaps happily ever after, is a sacrifice worth making.

Burn everything
to
the
ground.

4 July, 2014

You are whole here, in New York. 
We see it in your face. 
The note lay in an unassuming white envelope, among the piles of credit card offers and mail addressed "to resident". They're gone, now, but it's too soon to understand what that means.
Days pass in quiet exhaustion, as I begin to reinsert myself into the treaded paths that are mine. I walked along the river and saw the city covered in a heavy, brown haze. It looked almost like the end of summer. And there, at the end of the pier where it seems the city and the sea lie both at your fingertips, I realized.
I do not fear fall.
I do not fear rootlessness or my own
impoverished future.
I do not fear anything.
Because I am here.

Welcome home.

Ticker Tape

New York City remains.
Except for a new bicycle lane along Hudson Street, not much has changed. I step out in jet lagged vacation airs to find people hurrying to work with iced coffees and clothes a precise mix of heat proof and professional. Walk along the river where a few late morning joggers weave past nannies and their babies. My skin smells of sunshine and just a hint of salt. The absurdity of change twists through my synapses. It is at once like I was never gone, and like I haven't been here for years. My body has grown new edges, and I shift to make them fit again.

An old typewriter has made its home on a desk in the corner of my cramped room on Morton Street. I while away hazy hours clack-clack-clacking silly nonsense and fragile honesties onto its rolls. Something tangible about creating words straight to paper that means you cannot hide from them. Rules for Living a Life.

1. Do things that scare you. 

Ache

Let's make this one quick and painless, I can't cry anymore. It isn't true, of course, I have oceans of tears left and I'll wring myself dry before this is over. We stand in the courtyard hugging, but I look away when they walk out. Remind myself of the west village streets that await me. He says, I want the kids and the family and the home, you know, but the airport radio says tramps like us, baby we were born to run, and you're not sure if he believes his own words. You see travel in his eyes, and it stirs the nerve endings in your spine so you can't sleep. A huge storm passed through the city, storms are always stirring when you prepare to go, perhaps it is your wake up call. My brown skin and pink feet arrange themselves properly, pack their bags like a thousand times before. I want to settle down.

But you don't know what it means. 

And baby,

You were born to run. 

I dos

At last the sweltering heat began to calm. Wedding guests tossed their suit jackets and high heels into the soft grass and ran into the lake. We passed cold beer cans and swam into the sunset, laughing. 

I sat later on a rock in at the edge, after everyone had left, and thought how these were my last moments of quiet, of calm light evenings and friendship the kind that lasts for ever. The bride and groom were so nervous in the car, but they laughed more than they cried. I thought whatever I'm choosing instead of this had better be worth it. 

All I have now are words. I will them to fill the void that follows me back home. 

Enough

The streets look the same. You know every dimple in the concrete, every curve in the road. You borrow her bike and ride up to the old neighborhood; the left side of the street that used to be thick forest is all houses now, and the hill isn't as overwhelming as when you were a child, but here it is. The house looks smaller. We were happy here, weren't we? You ask yourself but the simple answers are hard to come by. The days are all hot, beautiful, and we go swimming at every chance. You haven't the time to consider what anything means. They don't ask questions, so neither do you. 

It is too easy to walk around here and pretend I didn't live my life in a whole other world than this one. But departure approaches. We wake up from our dreams, eventually. 

Stroked

There is only 

Sun

And sand

And sea,

Only those short moments underneath the surface in the cool, still waters when my mind is washed clean and my heart can beat without stumbling. 

There is only

Right here

Right now. 

Some times, there is a quick jab at my gut that says the real world quickly approaches, but they are few, and short, and I can mostly ignore them until they pass. My suitcase is scuffed at the edges, its contents a mess of crumpled clothes and discarded ambitions. 

I forget 

it is not all I have. 

The Good Land

I'm nervous now, she said, her billowing white skirt filling the entire front seat of the car. The a/c was turned up to maximum capacity, the July sun beating down outside. He turned to her, quiet first. I am, too.

I walked ahead of them into the glade, a hundred of their dearests gathered around the flowered bow in anticipation. When her oldest friend sang, and the sunlight glittered through the hazel leaves, and everyone held their breaths, she cried. It was perfect. 

The party began to peter out as peach-colored dawn spread quietly over the misty fields beyond the glade. I saw them softly swaying at the edge of the dance floor, leaning on each other with quiet smiles on their lips. The world around them looked no different than before. 

And still, somehow, how everything was New. 

Your Wall

Days pass, weeks, in idyllic summer days, all lush green grass and unwavering sunshine. My skin grows brown, my breaths deep. I forget to write, not for lack of words but for lack of minutes spent in solitude. We share the same bed; it's been this way for years and you never consider it. She plays records at the downtown club and you tip the velvet rope with ease. Walk home past the old apartment--another home lost and it doesn't make you feel a thing. Your grandmother giggles that same way even when she can't remember your name. It doesn't matter: you never forget the way she has loved you. 

Brooklyn picked you up at the train station. Leaving the city has gashed a hole in their hearts they do not yet know how to repair. You owe them words, you owe them everything. We go for a swim under the full moon. 

Everything burns

To the ground. 

At Last

You walk around the sunny city with a sense of foreboding. Saying to yourself this is your last swim, this is the last drink, now is the last time you'll see this view of Stockholm glittering in the water, and you don't know why you do it. It's like a drug you refuse to give up. You imagine your trip is over though it's just begun; you ride the train through picturesque countrysides and see summer grow dark and dry in its old age.

But it is not true. You have weeks yet left to revel. Countless dives in ever-warming waters. Dear friends and sweet embraces, you fit so easily back into the space they've held for you in their hearts and on those streets. Home eludes you yet again, as a mischievous specter forever out of your grasp but it grazes your cheeks often enough and softly enough to keep you chasing it. I walked past the old apartment one day and felt nothing. 

It occurs to me that home is not a place with four walls, 

a door to open and close. 

Could See Me Now

If you had come last week, oh it was so cold, it's been cold for weeks. They've all said it, but since I arrived has not the city been all kinds of summer peak? Warm and gentle, people dotting the shoreline and spreading out on any available grass? Summer in Sweden is magic, you fall for it every time without fail. We go out for breakfast in the mild morning sunlight on the square, look at the tan Scandinavians and try to catch up on too many loose threads. I walk along the water's edge to find a spot in the never-setting sun, but the people are everywhere: quiet, calm, anxiously absorbing the few weeks of summer that must carry them through the dark misery to follow. 

But it is too beautiful, too overwhelming, too serene. You stumble in finding your place; they've held that nook for you, kept it soft and warm for your return but you are too crooked to get comfortable. Remember those first trembling days of June, years ago now, when Stockholm was new: filled with potential but sullied by being the place that wasn't New York. 

I don't think I ever gave you a chance. 

I still don't know if we deserved one. 

At Your Side

Stockholm is so quiet this time of year, the whole city on vacation in the country and anyway the weather is too nice for concrete. I sit on their balcony, in their enormous apartment, it boggles the mind to remember the size of Morton Street and I can't remember what it feels like. Have just one moment to myself before the social merry-go-round begins again and all I can think is how sad it all is, after all. How many days we must spend with the futility of loneliness, how beautiful these streets are at the very end of the night, when you are too drunk not to be overwhelmed. I hear your words, all at once, they haunt me. People say you have left town. I should be relieved, but I miss you, instead. 

There was a time when this was all new

and we had all the time in the world. 

I wrap the winter coat tight around my bleeding heart,

pray for thicker skin 

in the fallout.

Skånegatan

The trees look like they used to, the rolling fields. The people are so fair, so tall, they're beautiful but sour-faced. You transfer at the central station because you always do. Take the green line. Barely need to think about it. Cross the water to the South Island and see the sun glitter in it. It's a lovely day. 

Their faces are the same, their laughs trip around your shoulders and ease you in. Only the children have grown. Stockholm is peaceful, holiday mode and everyone is so tan. I don't remember ever having been anywhere else. 

I saw your ghost in the street today. The back of your head, the whisper of your smile. Your scent is all over this town. There's too much written on the wind. 

I am tired of poetry. 

Yours Truly.

It was a week of such great elation and such terrible sadness. How she called to say she can finally take the babies and come home. How he quit the soul-sucking job ten years after he first knew he should. How we stood sweating at the playground saying our teary goodbyes. In the street saying more goodbyes. The impossibility of knowing what lies ahead, both fearful and tickled at the prospect. 

And then when I had dragged my bags through sweltering manhattan, dripping salty steam on the West 4th Street platform, run towards the gate and crossed my fingers for departure, there it was. The airplane lifted, swiveled the edge of the island and passed right over its middle. Over stacked skyscrapers and minuscule bridges, over lush rolling parks and spires in the clouds. There was an immense rolling thunder in my chest that said this is the only place, the only thing that has ever truly mattered. That this, despite my fears of commitment and my inability to say Yes, is what love is. That though it took me many years and several breakups, this is it. One-of-a-kind. Can't-live-without-you. Love. 

So I am in, New York. 

Let us make this work. 

Let us live our lives 

Together. 

And not part

until it is over. 

Seldom Told

Ninety-five degrees and about as much humidity. The air runs like treacle down Hudson Street as you make your way to the corner for another goodbye. There's too many of them now, you feel weak at the knees, your stomach in knots but you try deal with it like you were strong, infallible. Reluctant to pack your own bags, you wait until it's late and there's no telling what will be there when you arrive on the other side. A violent thunder storm runs across the town, the airports crumble in its wake and you nervously check the forecast, pray you will make it out.

But I walked in the rain to the drugstore, later. The edge of the storm had set the sunset on fire over the river, bathing the Village in a surreal, orange glow. The streets were quiet, hesitant, the Freedom tower lingering in the distance. I thought how grateful I am that this city is mine. That when those dearest to me leave, it does not. That even though I go, however reluctantly, the city will remain and await my return.

That knowing this city will be here waiting,
makes the pain in your chest
just a little lighter
to bear.

Opt Out

Everybody's leaving; you are not used to being the one left behind. Spend your days explaining to the little child why the boxes are building mountains in his apartment, why the cupboards are emptying out. He asks if you will come with him to California, but you will not. Nights are spent drunk on the stoop, rehashing the years of New York that you shared, the ones you did not. We'll give it a year, she says, we can always come back. You know these last deals with the devil are part of the dance. They leave you their typewriter and you refuse to understand it is over.

Still, every airplane that rolls across the Brooklyn sky reminds you that it is almost time to travel. That you get all the perks of roaming airports, of being in transit, of sating your relentless need to go, without all the heartache that comes with leaving. This luxury is not lost on you.

The moving dust settles on your sticky skin. We laugh, but it is sad as hell.

Anew

The last minutes of sunlight are breathtaking. A warm peachy fire beams down 26th street as we leave the bar, and I hurry down the avenue to catch a train before it's too late. Cross the Williamsburg Bridge and think this is the last time I'll be going here, but it's too big to imagine. The Chrysler building dances in pink twilight in the distance; there's something about the light and the city hasn't been this beautiful in ages. 

I catch the last fleeting moments of bumbling sunset on the roof of the old pasta factory. J trains rumble across the bridge without interruption. The city sprawls and snuggles infinitely. We manage to laugh but I don't know how: it's all over now. 

As the others gather the last empty beer cans and begin the trek back downstairs, to divvy up leftover flour bags and designer shoes that won't fit in the suitcase, I stay up there for a minute, staring. It occurs to me that nothing has ever made me as happy as being in this city does. That for all my excruciating vagabondery and trembling commitment issues, this place has always, always felt like home. That if you have one truly good thing in your life, you owe it to yourself not to squander it. 

I'm in, I whisper, and for once I believe it. That I will stop pretending I need to be going elsewhere, that this is a temporary bliss I don't really deserve. I will stay here now, I will build a life until it is built within me. 

New York,

Baby, 

I'm in. 

There Was a Love Affair

New York summer arrives. You make peace with the air like treacle in your lungs, accept the steady trickle of sweat down the small of your back. Spend five minutes in air conditioning and forget what is out there, it smacks you in the face every time. The F train is running with delays, a voice says, and you try to slow the warm pulse in your veins. 

Next Thursday seems like a black hole, he says, like the shadow of a spot so dense no light escapes. You know the feeling so well. Half the boxes packed, the impossibility of seeing what lies behind that magic date and everything will work out because it's too late to go back now. You should have taken that G when it came, transferred at Hoyt Schermerhorn. You don't understand how others look so unaffected. Black jeans and boots. You are a puddle along the platform. 

It's different this time, you know. I still talk of end dates and movings and not even this can last forever, but it doesn't feel the same. New York City has rooted itself in my backbone, has nestled itself into the spaces that were not mad with youth and fervor, not deranged with childhood trauma in search of a fix. It has crept into the parts of me that make a life, that build a home when it thinks no one is watching. I look at every building, every street corner, every hurried face, and I know. 

I am exactly where I ought to be. 

Shake This Old Thing

It's warm, but not New York warm, you walk slowly with a breeze on your back to the south Williamsburg pasta factory. Four years you've been coming here, before they lived here you came to admire the view and dream about a life in New York that was yours for the taking. Today it's the longest day of the year and they say their farewells, you cry when no one is watching and try to believe there will be a life after they leave. Remember you left them once and they built a life here in your absence. You are not used to being left behind. 

Do you remember that summer, we sat in the fifth floor window and looked at the Manhattan skyline, whispering dreams into the humid summer night and grateful just to be allowed in. It is ours now, this city, it will be yours forever whenever you want to come back to it. The dance floor was sweaty but we escaped back up to that roof to the magic view and endless air. I saw stars but what need had I for them?

 I have you.

The Excess

This view.. This city.. I just can't... He said in unbelieving awe. His first time in New York, and here he was at the top of the Brooklyn factory that showed him every building block of the city. The day had been sweltering, but the sunset brought cool winds and the light that made everything glow. 

It's like I get high off their fumes, she said, like I'm addicted to the feeling of seeing New York for the very first time and I can't get enough. There were tears in her eyes now, and I knew just what she meant. I still remember sitting in that SuperShuttle, eight years ago soon, and we dropped another group off near the David Letterman marquee as we made our way to 50th and 1st. Still remember the mad dash to the Lexington apartment and the view of the Empire State Building from the terrace. How impossible it seemed that this city really existed, that we were really there. All these years later, she whispered, and I still haven't taken enough pictures of this skyline. No filter can do justice to what actually seeing it is like. 

They pack their bags now, count down days. Tell themselves they will be back, time and again, and that the city will be here when they do. It just seems like my dream was to come here and live this exact life, and where does one go from that? How does one leave that?

We sat silently in the approaching dusk. Midtown twinkled across the water. I was grateful then that it was not me leaving, that those trains would keep rocking over the Williamsburg bridge and the skyscrapers keep humming in my periphery. The newcomer brought up his wife to see this strange new world they'd uncovered. We drank our beers in silence. There's no doing this picture justice. 

(Post Script)

(and I wasn't completely honest, you know,
when you asked me about the words, 
because I think sometimes,
well, I fear sometimes,
that they are gone completely
and it is all over.
But it's not true, 
not at all, 
they are here all the time
telling me their secrets, 
I just have to catch them,
properly,
like fireflies in glass jars,
and when I do,
I think it will all work out
and every
dark
day
will have been worth it.)

Ampersand

Port Authority runs like a dusty labyrinth, it turns people gray just from walking through it. There are no windows, no signs of fresh air or towering cities, only meandering caverns and dark doorways to unknown destinations. I ride the escalators to the Greyhound gates and there she is, like no dark winter months have passed, like no thousands of ocean miles; a bucket of beer later, I forget they ever did. We bring another six-pack to the stoop, and only after the cops have fined us do we go inside. The stories amass.

New York City takes on the same magical air it always does when I am trying to show it off. The summer sunlight makes the brick buildings hum, the Hudson glitter. She buys me dinner at that restaurant that makes me smile, and a hundred drinks later we saunter down the west village streets in revered silence. I show her where Woody Guthrie lived, the same building where we drank all that wine on the fire escape, you remember, and she shivered in awe. New York will do that to you. I read old journals from that other town and all they say are how much I wish I was here.

I don't think of you as much as I used to. Your smile doesn't burn my carefully constructed shelter like it did, and I am grateful for every day the air is not knocked out of my gut at the sound of your name. I wish you nothing but blue skies. This city will weather the storms in your wake, for me.

Steeped

We're on the island. Can we make it a stoop night? And whatever plans I may have had, none of them were worth more than drinking bubbly on the Morton Street steps in their company. I brought the ailing dog, several flutes, and we moved onto the sweltering street. Neighbors pass through our setup, some I have known for years and some are so new I can't tell them apart. It occurs to me that I have lived longer in this apartment than any other place in my adult life. It's too soon to say what that means.

They count down the days to departure. We stare into the West Village nights and smile, ignore the numbers in our head.

On Point

journal excerpt,

September 15, 2013

This is my last night in the apartment at Klippgatan. I can't believe this day has come. 

The neighbor across the street watches TV, always. The old lady is still awake, puttering about. Soon, the last sunrise over the apartment at the top of the hill. Soon, my dear sweet Sofia church will reign over other inhabitants, life will go on as though I was never here at all. It always does. 

It seems somehow different this time, like it's really become clear what a sad disease I suffer, how I may tragically walk through life never making permanent commitments, always clearing out and moving on, always leaving my loyal, supportive friends in the dust and going on to greener pastures that never are. 

This has been a great apartment. It has been a blessing. 

But I feel nothing now, 

That it's over. 

Grounds

The problem is not unhappiness. If it were unhappiness, I would leave it. 

The problem is in cloudless skies I do not know my own skin, in uncomplicated joy I forget the reason I came. If I let these demons go, I fear none of me would remain. 

So they linger in my folds. 

I wish they would devour me,

instead. 

Stepped Outside

My teeth ache. They grind themselves to pulp in the night when I cannot convince them otherwise. I walk to work with a scowl. Spend the nights with a dark cloud along my brow. I try to know why but clarity eludes me. The days are too often muddled. 

We sat on the stoop last night, drinking the season's first champagne and eating strawberries. I chain smoked deep curling drags into the heavy air and passersby could not help themselves but comment on the appeal of our feast. We spoke of the packed bags in her apartment, of what it meant to leave New York. 

But I won't accept that all is lost and over just because we are making a change, she said. New York is our home, the restaurants may change over the years but we will always know these streets. If whatever comes next is so awful, we can always come back. 

We sat a long time on that stoop. We spoke of life, and grief, and futures. Neighbors came and went, stepping lightly around the spread, and when the time came to part I was more than a little intoxicated. Perhaps it was the last time we had drinks on the stoop together. 

But it doesn't mean all is lost. 

Wreck Me

It was somewhere near Battery Park City that the feeling hit me. Like hot air hits you when you leave the airport of a tropical land, and it is immediately all over you, it consumes you and assumes you and you can no longer remember what it was like to feel any other way. The New York twilight was dark, and scintillating, a hint of green across the New Jersey and the Freedom Tower looming impossibly tall, twinkling. A sliver of new moon wavered over all, and I stopped dead in my tracks with sweat coursing along my temples.

I have had enough now.

And somehow I believed it must be true. That I have had enough. Of this self-annihilation and ridiculous games of a pretend life that never is. Of painting images where none are, simply because no one takes it upon themselves to tell me off. I have had enough of living with one foot in sanity and one in madness.

I have had enough of not living in art.

I continued running after that, faster and harder until my feet hit the pavement loudly and I thought I would throw up with exhaustion. Coming home, I began to scrub the kitchen cupboards and sing until my lungs wearied and my throat was dry, my fingers raw. Books lay open to favorite lines and dog-eared pages, and I absorbed them like brand new truths, like sermons to the recently converted. The cogs and wheels began to twist and turn around my insides, wringing out soured desires and tragic dead ends. I feel my vessel clean itself out, ready itself for brighter journeys.

No one ever looks back at their life wishing they'd taken the straight and certain.

Lexington and 53rd

You've had too much wine, pretending it's Friday night even though you have work tomorrow and when you reach the subway the world is spinning. A rat lies dying on the tracks; you commiserate. There must be more to it than this. She writes from across the oceans to say she made it home alright. The pictures remind her of better times; the rat revives and runs away. The boy on the subway from work had that curly hair you can't resist: in my mind I run my fingers through it but he plays Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe with his girlfriend and you almost sleep past your stop. You pray the toothache is all in your head because you are too poor to do anything about it. Perhaps the right thing to do is cut your hair and get a job. 

He laughed so much to see me today, and all I could see in his California tan was that it is time to move on. Change is your only constant; you swim like hell to keep one step ahead. This will all end in tears. It will all end in tears. The only thing that can save your tattered soul is the art you leave in its wake. 

You must leave art in your wake. You must burn, and bleed, and put the stories  to words. Why else would life be so sad, if not for scattered remnants of magic?

Coney Island baby

The sweltering heat returns, all sunshine and humid air and the breeze like a hair dryer. Memorial Day passed quietly in the Village when all the rich folks were away in their summer houses, and we moved out onto the stoop with our cold beers and fluffy dog, it was perfect, like it always was. 

We take the train out to Coney Island, an empty air conditioned car and perhaps the kids are all still in school, and the suits are back at work, and the boardwalk feels like a whole other country. Wish you were here. We bought post cards yesterday. I've been meaning to send them one for months. The air smells like sun screen. All I want is to live like this forever with endless ocean horizon and freedom, but I don't know how I'll ever let go of Manhattan to do it. 

Showing her New York for the first time revives my love for it, makes it sparkle again like it always did. Stories resurface, begin to write themselves in the back of my spine and I don't know how I could have doubted them, as I did. 

It occurs to me that love runs two ways. So that when I doubted, all was not lost. 

Ellis Island Ferry

Hello, she said, What's your name? My name is Jasmine. Do you live in New York? She nestles in next to me at the railing. Next stop Battery Park. The breeze is cool, and welcome. That's the Freedom Tower. She points to the spire that makes all the others seem like walkups. My grandpa was here on 9/11. He went to buy some bread, and when he came out, he saw the airplane hit the building, and he ran as fast as he could and hid behind a bush. What's New York like? 

I tell her it's busy, and full of people. I ask her where she's from and try to imagine what she could hear that might stick. I ask her age; she was not born when 9/11 happened. Remember myself, in the shower, my college roommate coming in to tell me, how everything changed after that. How I thought This is no longer a country where my children should grow up.  Her hair is long, and dark, her skin tone not mine. How many stores, and restaurants, and neighborhoods were attacked because of the sound of the name of the owner.

I want to tell her it is the most awe-inspiring place in the world. That the streets are paved with magic and there is space enough in these buildings for everyone to fit their dreams. I want to tell her that the void of those skyscrapers are only one piece in the giant puzzle of stories from the people who make this their home. I want to tell her that this city is the place that makes me feel like myself, when no other place ever could, and that I still get tears in my eyes when I remember it.

It is too late, of course, she has run off to her friends to giggle and share Jujubes and get in trouble with their teachers. The south tip of Manhattan arrives quickly, its glass buildings towering over the little boat. I think of those poor immigrants, what they felt.

Realize in a hundred years, the stories haven't changed at all.

Choice

(All this thinking,
must be good for something;
all these floods of emotion
and whirls of literary construction,
must serve a purpose larger
than my own self-mutilation.

If they do not,
would I not simply
leave them behind
and
move
on
?)

Suspension

I dreamed of you last night.

And not of the way things were before the fall, but like perhaps the gash in my chest had healed. The scar may have been thick, but I wasn't bleeding. You looked at me with those sad eyes and I wanted to protect you from anything that would haunt you. Feelings do not disappear just because it would be easier if they did. The cable car moved on in silence. 

By morning, I'd forgotten most of what was said. 

But there's a dull ache, where that scar might be. 

Brand New

I have dreamed about this city so long. I didn't even think it was real, somehow. And now, here I am; I don't know what to feel at all. 

We spend our days slowly meandering through the magical city, weaving through tourist attractions and secret back streets alike. I spout out historical tidbits at every turn, but I'm not sure they're why she came. Lower Manhattan spans majestically at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge; Central Park is lush, and warm, and winding, Greenwich Village is as ever titillating with its stories of poets past. No sugar-coating necessary, no grand elaborate setups. Whatever the lumbering masses demand, it provides. Whatever the shivering refugees need, will be there before they know to ask for it. We look up our forefathers in the Ellis Island registry, see their names handwritten into the old pages. Blue, Blond, speaks English, declared healthy of body and mind. Forty-eight dollars to their name. They came here hoping for a better life.

Did not we, too?

Presenting this city to one who has never seen it proves to be a treat. I rediscover the nooks and crannies I no longer see in the mad dash to get to work, get to life. Remember that I once wanted to run my fingers over every brick and every flaw in this entire city. Realize that I still do. Oh, New York, how you are the only thing in this heartbreaking world that ever made sense.

When I have trouble sleeping--and I do every night you know, she says as we lie in the dark in the cramped bedroom on Morton Street and let the day sink in, I imagine myself going to sleep in New York. 

Now that I am here, 
now that I am here,
I don't know what to dream
anymore. 

From Adam

Marcy avenue BQE music and there's a soft breeze across your sunburned shoulders. The roof was beautiful, all mid-summer scorch and still dry enough to breathe--didn't you try to cut the humidity with a knife yesterday? We had a picnic in Harlem today, the Mexican parade making it hard to cross Central Park West, but the grass was newborn lush under your bare feet. It's Sunday, so the M doesn't, run, but you are in no hurry. 

If you think it will be great, you should go, he says, and wasn't that exactly what you were thinking? Your arguments of sanity don't make much of a dent in your sense of adventure. You promise yourself to consider it, despite the tickle in your veins. Summer in New York is just beginning, you sing louder now even when people can hear you. 

And I'm free. 

(Free falling.)

First Position

You don't feel you could love me

But I feel you could. 

Lincoln Center five minutes after curtain and the plaza clears quickly, the fountain left to its own steep rhythm. The security guard tries to woo me with talk of his businesses, and I have nowhere to go but encouragement. Bygones. When we finally stand there on the second ring, hearing the soft tap tap of pointe shoes patting across the stage floor, aren't you immediately removed from any ennui? Taut bodies worn into the tools of their trade, the tulles of their trade, they leap and bend and you don't realize until the final beat that you were holding your breath this entire time, gasping into your applause and smiling in the dark. You immerse yourself into art lately, you cannot get enough, like a newborn in appreciation, like you didn't grow up at the stage, it means something different now because you try to see their dedication with other glasses than the ones you've been told to wear for so long. 

I look forward to trying things and failing, you hear yourself say and know it's true mostly as a hypothetical, but it seems a promising start. We order another pitcher of sangria and laugh into the Queens Friday night, but the silent spaces between are deadly serious, and we let them. The city has been covered in a thick mist all day, you can still cut the humidity with a knife. 

On the subway home, I know it again. I love this city more than I knew I could love anything. It knows me, it knows me, and still it lets me move through its innards perpetually. 

If you needed saving, what other place could do it but this?