Boxing

The temporary reprieve is over: second avenue roars again with taxicabs in rain and youthful choruses beneath your window. Life returns to the city. 

Are you ready 

for what it brings?

Love Letter

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. 

I dragged myself out of bed this morning, I'll admit. But the work load ahead was light, the day meant for sauntering in flannel pajamas and drinking countless glasses of bubbly before dark. Rumors came of warm winds, but you couldn't believe it from inside the Christmas lit apartment on East 4th street. When I finally made my way outside at dusk, nothing had yet prepared me for the tropical air that enveloped the city in summer songs.

I made my way south along Allen, turned at Delancey, where the Scandinavian restaurant with a seedy back room behind the kitchen had been replaced by an oyster bar. Walked with determined steps up the unending slope that is the Williamsburg bridge. There is a spot in the middle where the two sides meet, you can cross over and stare unabashedly at the city skyline so long as you mind the speeding bicycles. A man stood above the train tracks playing his saxophone. Perhaps he was self conscious for the sounds. The ground shakes here every time a train passes. It feels like a reassuring rocking in your belly. 

But here's the point I'm trying to make, New York, however ineloquently, and it is that I love you. It is that no matter the day, or year, or weather, I am happier with you than I ever have been without. That no matter the money in my pocket or the success on my papers, ever day I live here I have won. That I can look back fondly on the violent sorrow of every time I've left, a sadness that tore the organs from within my body and drained the light from my eyes, because they seem now a maudlin recollection of a time when we did not know better, of a threat that will not reappear. And however lonely, or mismatched, or confused I may find myself, simply walking your streets will make sense of the world again and make the pieces fall into place. I sleep sounder in your crazy cacophony than ever I did in the quiet darkness that is everywhere else. You make me a better person, you make my life unequivocally worth living, and I will spend the rest of my days attempting to deserve you. 

Faithfully, 

Yours. 

Turnpike

We'll never get out of here

Darling.

It's hard to listen to your words, still, I pick such terrible times to hear you and the words rage through me like an infection. It scratches my skin from the inside until the fever rises in it. I cry when I should be happy, shaking tears into my hands and echoing empty sadness into the quiet apartment. December is unseasonably warm.

I left New York this morning, sunrise over glass buildings and an ethereal mist around the Manhattan skyline. New Jersey is pretty when it doesn't try. When someone can appreciate it for what it is. Sometimes we run and run without reprieve. But don't worry. 

I just need to catch my breath. 

Rot

Their concerned faces stare at you like in dreams. Teeth fall out of your mouth. There are pains you daren't ask what they are; your body decomposes slowly, but not slowly enough.

We drove through the tunnel just as the sun was setting, and resurfaced in Battery Park where the buildings are so tall. As we made our way up the East side of the river, Brooklyn lay glowing in twilight, the bridges majestic and the skyscrapers of midtown vibrating in a welcoming hum. For a second I couldn't carry on the conversation. I just stared at each piece of this life sized puzzle, tried to memorize every square inch of the scene. I thought This is the only place I ever wanted to be and the thought of not being here seemed so impossible the future was made simple. My heart swelled with gratitude. We weaved back into the Midtown maze, gathered our things, carried on with our lives.

But not one corner of the image did I forget.

Ends

The river is cold, there's a wind from the East. Your sneakers are new, they have that soft swing to them. It's the first time you run this stretch since the girl was dragged off the path and raped last week. You brace yourself. The bandshell where it happened is eerily illuminated in flood lights. Stage set for a show no one wants to see. You run past it alone. 

The world falls apart outside your window. At every turn abyss. Perhaps it was always the end of days. 

You should do something worthwhile, with yours.