Chelsea Nights

A hundred degrees and the subway platform is empty. Your skin is damp and you pray the AC unit in your window hasn't fallen down down to the unassuming street below. Make a mental note to steal a brick from the construction at the corner to place underneath it for safety measures.

He speaks of heroin addiction treatment centers on the Lower East in the early 90s, and it sobers you more than the mug of espresso before you. Try not to wobble onto the tracks while you wait for the F train. It all smells like piss but you stay at the back because that's where you want to get off at 2nd ave. 

There was a New York before you got here; it was a different city than the one that is yours, and a different one that their daughter will grow up in still. He wants her to know how to break someone's face, while she is mostly concerned with handstands and pulling her own teeth out. We all want the best for our children.

The train announces itself with a gust of wind, long before its headlights appear at the turn in the tunnel. You close your eyes and let arrival cool your pounding veins. A hundred balloons line the ceiling of your apartment. 

You think you have never been as happy

as you are right now.