Roof

The mornings are milder, now, a slight chill in the breeze and you relish in the fresh air, all the while seizing in panic. It's a reaction that will not be assuaged with the years. Across the ocean, your grandfather recovers, miraculously, and you don't feel a thing.

You were not meant for marriage, children, family. It's not in you, I don't think, he says across a faulty line. War continues, another country to mend, but his words stick with you, and you can't figure out if they linger as daggers or as an open door. There is freedom in mobility, in never being tethered, but you seem to hear hear a lengthy sentence in his words. He straddles the same eternity, himself.

I walked down 6th avenue, late last night, outrageously drunk and with no words left inside. Jefferson  Market Library towered beside me; it felt like home in my ragged state. Greenwich Village carried me a few more blocks south, reminded me there have been years before this, there will be more years to come. Perhaps a life untethered, alone, but free to walk these streets night after night, season upon season, perhaps that is the greatest gift of all.

Sometimes I think you've forgotten why you're here.

But I don't think 6th avenue ever did.