August, Too

The afternoon continues in mild brilliance. Bleecker street is crowded, sauntering tourists and persistent brunchers mill about the corners as I try to hurry uptown. I reach Union Square just in time, riding impatiently up countless escalators past sunny windows, before retreating into the dark of the movie theater at the top. Sunday matinee and not half the seats are full. The girl in front of me comes alone, too; she is eating ice cream with a spoon before the house lights are dimmed. I only brought water. But knowing what's to come doesn't leave much room for an appetite.

The American plains spread out again; they are just as heartachingly beautiful this time as the last, and perhaps tinged with more despair from the start. The characters appear, dancing their steps just right and the little crowd laughs accordingly because they do not know yet how venomous the bite to come. For two hours, a steady stream of tears rolls down my cheeks, a heavy lead weight sinks in my gut. Life is such tragedy. You wish you didn't see your own reflection in this reel but it cannot be helped.

Why else would you have gone back?

I walk west on 12th street, the evening still strangely mild, and I cannot make myself turn on any of the avenues. Such a quaint little street with brownstone steps and garden lanterns and Café Cluny like right out of a small town in France. Eventually I hit the West side highway and the wind picks up, my cigarette smoke evaporating quickly as the cars go by. How slow my steps, and heavy, but the city revives me, embraces my sad shambles of a person, until I can make my way back to Morton Street and fall apart in words.

If I did not have them,
who would pick these ragged pieces
up?