33

Another year passes, and yet, because of just one small detail, none of the days, none of the years seem to matter so much. I came back to New York, and all the things that ever hurt me were suddenly secondary. It seems impossible, ridiculous somehow, and I remember so well those cold nights in Stockholm, doubting what Elysian Field I had left behind, convinced that it couldn't possibly be this beautiful place I had made it up to be. But you know, being here... It really is Everything.

I hope you do things that terrify you this year, that you dare to beat them, and that you rejoice when you do. I hope you say Yes when asked. I hope you travel, see something new. I hope you make new friends but also continue to love the ones you have. I hope you read. I hope you love New York City and that you do it proud. 

You always did, me. 

Turn

The evening is cool, for the first time in ages the air doesn't make you sweat yourself to sleep. You turn down the fan, let the constant bustle of 2nd Avenue wash over you. There was a moment today where you felt sorry for yourself but this city washes it right off of your skin. Nothing changes with the passing of a night or a day. 

But with the seasons, sometimes we can turn a leaf. 

Press

I like her, but you just get this feeling she's headed straight for a crash. We turn the pages, discuss prose and story arcs, laugh at the discrepancies of rough drafts. I look my main character in the eyes, hear her bottomless despair of so many years, see the way her smile sparkles in the upturns. She's waiting even for herself to betray her.

But the words have been here for longer than you've known you needed them. You revel in them, float dreamily along their streams and rejoice in their homecoming. The words have stood by you when everything else has crumbled underneath your thumb.

You vow not to betray them, now.

Circus

I saw an image of her, I couldn't help myself, I scrolled through a hundred, I'm sorry. Part of me hates her, you know, it isn't her fault at all, and just as big a part of me wishes I was more like she is. That dark hair that drapes her, the thin voice that'll break if you love her too hard. If my crooked smile was wistful like hers, perhaps you would think of me still.

There's salt water in my hair still, wisps of sand in the curves of my skin. They help etch new lines across my memory where your face used to lie. The days, they help, the summer songs and bottomless cups. Your voice still rings in my ears, I think I'd do anything to make you laugh, but maybe I can put one foot in front of the other for another few days, maybe they will add into years, maybe one day I will look at your smile and be happy just that it is. Maybe one day she will walk past me and it will not knock the air out of me.

But not today.

of Earth and Sea

Early morning, second avenue is still quiet after the storm. A young man in last night's suit walks home. We escape the city before it begins to boil. Head east until you can smell the ocean. Stop and feel your lungs begin to breathe. 

Summer races towards an end but you still feel invincible. Still make plans for sunny adventures and cold drinks in late summer evenings. You were always slow on the pickup, so perhaps it isn't more than right. You count your blessings to live in a place where there's time for you to come around. 

You are perpetually counting your blessings to be here. 

Wear

The heat refuses to break. It pushes itself into your pores, it mauls your senses and makes every breath heavy. You seem to recall a time when your skin was not drenched in sweat, but it seems so distant, a time when you did not long for a change in season. The only thing to cool your fevered nerves are the countless margaritas you order, and by now the waitress looks at you with a familiar face.

We sat at the quiet bar and watched the Monday night patrons trickle in. East Village, they all came and shook our hand, made friends. The bulldog you brought greets them in return, with impropriety. Friendship 20 years in the making, you still remember the small town in California where she was born, when she tells your about her Nana, you remember those crinkled eyes and how they would smile; when she cries because he's really left, there's nothing uncomfortable in the air around it.

The years add up in your muscles, they build a life inside of you that can only be what it is with time. These people are built into your veins, these seasons wire themselves along your spine. Your joints ache more than they used to, your skin loses its tightness, but there is a quiet calm that rests on your shoulders that wasn't there before.

Perhaps the summer will pass at last. Perhaps another year won't be the end at all.

Short Message Service

…it just feels like I've grown this 
extra limb and 
I'm trying to rework my body 
with it
so everything is 
coordinated
and can work
ok 
together

(and you can't help but think
that you still wreak havoc
everywhere you go)

Still

I have the window open to Second Avenue, a round fan in the window, no screen. The street is loud, so loud every night and thick layers of soot trail into my room, but here's the thing. 

No matter how broken I am, how lost and entrenched in the war that is being alive, when I take my glasses off at the end of the night, and look at the blurry lights through that open window. 

Nothing is ever wrong that is not made right by the sight. 

Against

Images of an old-school train bar car, Southern California in the late afternoon sun, no one ever has to worry about what to wear in Los Angeles and everything's just the right shade of comfortable. Outside my window, a restless New York summer races past while I rot away in a mess of my own making. Flip through the pages of my youth to see nothing has ever changed, nothing was ever different. Perhaps that should be a comfort. But if we have 60 years left of the same, what's the use of even one?

Sometimes the futility of life will hit you like a misguided firecracker on the Fourth of July. It's stupid to even risk, stupid to get so close when you know what can happen but you think you're invincible and suddenly it's pierced your very bowels and you spiral into the inevitable abyss that is enlightenment. There is no point to any of this. 

What do we do with our lives, knowing?

Capital

The evening sun is warm, velvety like molasses: August sun. It hangs lazily near the horizon, licking the tree tops and trickling into the clearings in the woods. Everything is lush, delicious, rural. You manage to snag the last available window seat on an entire train, way up front, an insufferable group of college bros around you with their beer buzz and terrible choices in music. For a second you regret your treasure seat. 

But as the train rolls out of the station, as it flies past the Hudson River and lulls you into solitude, all the disturbances and annoying itches that exist without, begin to roll off your skin and onto the the tracks behind. The conductor walks by, a white-haired man with that twinkle in his eye and he looks just like one would imagine a conductor in a children's book, in a 1930's movie; he makes jokes at you and you just smile. America lies gentle outside your window. All is well. 

Springs

Early morning, your alarm rings: you haven't stirred once in the night. The room is dark, and quiet, and cool, and you sleep like a child. Outside the window, it's a whole other world, the air is fresh, albeit industrially tough. You drive through winding highways, discussing trivia, looking up answers in pockets of reception. Stare at the cumulus clouds and revel in sunlight without jungle heat. Walk through the little town, entirely content with life. You realize that the city nears again; you feel like you are a thousand miles away. 

There was a moment today, at the top of the great waterfall, when I thought to myself that life is that current, that smooth pure cool current and at some point you'll fly down the rushing falls, and it'll terrify you to no end, but at the bottom, isn't it all twirls and mist and perpetual rainbows again? It was the most zen I've felt in ages. 

The heat can't get to you, then.