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.