to Show Me

(We sat in the late autumn sunlight and watched yellow leaves dance to the ground and I thought I have never seen pain. In a messy room in an East Village tenement building, a word processor lies untouched, a pile of pages lie blank.

It's only because I think these streets are mine, that I hesitate. It's only because I fear if I share them, I can also lose them. You sit like a life raft steady at the surface and reach out your hand, but I see if I am to grab on, all the sludge around my ankles will follow, and once it's seen sunlight there's no going back.

I cannot pretend this tabula rasa forever. Set fire to the streets. Wait and see what survives the flames.)