Say It Can Be

Late night playgrounds with the lights out, the swings move different under adult conversation. I had to stop for a minute to hear the words: they were not surprising, they were true. We walked past a street corner where a former literary character of mine had potentially lived, in an instant the entire book came flooding back over me. I missed her violently, first sweetly in recollection, then in mourning. She was packed away and abandoned, never to live in the imagination of another. The bitter taste in my mouth trickled out all morning in sticky aired Tompkins Square park during those magic hours when the bums own it again, the ragged, when I can relax. Anaïs Nin speaks to me in voices in the back of my head; she colors the fire escapes and sunsets, the burning sliver of new moon, I remember how it felt to always walk through her melodies and now I have since forgotten. Too much fire packed away, and for what?

I am angry with myself today. Maybe tomorrow I bring out the shears.