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.