Christmas Day

You spend a few days in twisted agony, in swirling down an inevitable rabbit hole and gasping for air at every turn. The days are warm and the nights freeze you right to the bone, it's hard to remember which way is up. Christmas Day arrives and Second Avenue is deserted in the early morning. I turn on the Christmas tree lights and make a cup of coffee before remembering my own name but it returns eventually.

Late in the afternoon, much later than planned but better than never, I finally make my way outside to find New York alive, well, and bustling despite itself. At the summit of Williamsburg bridge, the sun begins to set over the Statue of Liberty, hoards of people gather, stopping their runs or hopping off their fixie bikes to capture it on their respective apps, but I can barely hear them.

Because when I despair, does the city not come straight to my aid? When I falter, does it not pick me up in the most beautiful ways? A deep orange lays on the Empire State Building, the Chrysler dazzles on fire. Puzzle pieces of Brooklyn skylines stack themselves around the horizon. I forget all things, so easily I stumble, but there is one conviction in which I never waver. New York City is home in a way that my soul never was on its own, it sates me and fills me and lets me love when I don't think I know what love is. I am not right, without it, but in its arms I want for nothing.

The sun sets eventually, the balmy afternoon giving way to winter winds, and the crowds disperse. I pick myself back up, breathing now in a way I haven't for weeks, months maybe. Who needs poetry when there is this place?

Who needs anything else, at all?