Pom

I wake in sunshine, relentless bright sunshine in my eyes after a short night, I’m not angry. A happy voice trills from the living room, we read a hundred books and ride the bus to school, his goodbyes the excited rambles of a 2-year-old while I try unsuccessfully to explain airplanes and lengths of time. I’ll see you soon, I say at last and he runs off to a sandbox without looking back. I lace my shoes and head out across the fields, dip into forests, past the horses, around the inlet. The air is cool but the sun is warm, everything is spring. I pack my bags and wonder at how quickly I meld into a life that was so distant; it's the same procedure every time. I stop to pick a flower and stuff it in my bag. There was a time when people left and never came back. Your bag is light, your soul, weightless. I am filled with love; I am free.

But You

My aunt dies. Leaves behind a broken family, so frailly held together by their love, like a thin silk thread that sways under the weight of their tears by her casket. The day is painfully beautiful, all birdsong and courageous sunshine, the woods strewn with flowers. Familiar arms held me on the train platform and I thought family is something you make. I wished you were there, when the tears emptied me. This isn’t how it’s supposed to go, this is too soon, there is too much life left in the world and she made her daughter promise to still get married come summer.

The train ride home was quiet, the velvet countryside dancing in warm sunset colors, the lakes still, the forests reliably unyielding. And an empty spirit makes room for a grateful heart to grow.

Storm in the Desert

The morning is early, the city still sleeping, when I rush down the stairs and out into the street, a few early commuters and beggars by the subway. I miscalculated the walk, even though I take the short cut across the Market square I run late. The turns are familiar but foreign, I wonder who made me a stranger in my own homeland, and maybe it was me. Face enough pain, grate life against your bleeding heart enough times and eventually you’ll be all scar tissue and numb. As the train pulled out of the station, the waters glittered and the church steeples stretched in the morning light. You know there was something here you loved but you’ve stopped looking back. It is what it is, you think to yourself as the train races through a countryside you know like your heartbeat. I ran through the woods yesterday and every spring flower spoke to me.

I have too much left to tell you and a whole life won’t be enough time for it. I better start now, and we won’t waste a minute.

Constellation

The day begins too early, but once your shoes are laced there’s no turning back: a sun appears, a warm wind, spring flowers in the forest glades; the arched eyebrows of conformed crowds around you fade away. The culture of your bones allows for endless coffee, for abandoning duties with the coming of spring, twilight lasts forever and you remember what it is to never want to sleep. He said something so true that you felt peace all the way to the soles of your feet. Grow accustomed to the lilt of the language, to the familiar lines of a supermarket. I can love this air to my very soul, and still smile when it is time to go.

It is a blessing to set roots
that remain.

Land

There’s something familiar in the air, it unnerves you. Trip over tongue twisters you were born to learn. Everyone looks the same: they all look like you. I dragged my little suitcase behind me across the cobblestoned streets, the air warmer than I’d imagined and a kind spring sunlight in my eyes. The sun sets late over scattered rooftops but the night is so silent you can hear your blood rush. In the space, you are offered a moment’s reprieve.

You devour it like you’d been starving.

Resolution

The day begins in sunshine, you drink it in with your coffee and let it seep deep into your lungs. It puts a smile on your face despite itself. You take a long run along the river and lie in the grass recovering, there’s a double meaning in there and you allow it. On the other end of the ticket, chaos yells at you until you stumble but as the sun sets over your subway train you are all peace.

I am stronger now than I was before. I will take the lid off this boiling pot, there was sunshine in my bed this morning and it reminded me I am ready to do better than I know how, it reminded me what spring feels like in my bones, it reminded me what love is and it is not the absence of crooked, of pitfalls, or fear.

It is walking the road despite them, and always finding your way home in the end.

Well I’ll Be Someone Else

I cried on the F train today. They say you’re not a real New Yorker until you’ve cried on the subway, but I’ve been a New Yorker for years they don’t make the rules. I cried on a couch in the early hours too, and in the late hours, I cried all over this city in the last few days and I’m not sure it’s changed a damn thing. This room is littered with discarded dreams of a bright future, the sun beams outside the bay window and now was finally supposed to be our time again, now was finally the time for Life to flood my senses and make me good enough for those same futures that inadvertently fell out of my notebooks and combusted along the way. Your brown skin feels the same against my fingertips in the morning but its demeanor no longer lives here, the heart within it beats elsewhere and I don’t know how to follow it. Spring explodes around us. I suppose the gifts were not meant for me, I suppose I opened them out of turn.

It’s just I don’t know how to give them back and pretend I don’t know what they feel like in my hands.

Bookends

The list of things to do was long, the sole day of freedom weighing heavy with expectation. But as I opened the lid of the word processor, as I took in the scent of fresh coffee and dusty pages and felt again the familiar sensation of words in my blood stream, all the other demands faded away. I made more coffee, and more coffee still, and everything that needed to be said was so easily told until there was nothing more to offer. I printed the pages, it took ages, my printer roaring to life and the smell of warm ink spreading through the messy room. There it is, I thought, and though I was supposed to feel accomplished I only felt empty. Now what?

I tied my running shoes, confused. But as I sat still on the quiet couch, staring into nothing, it dawned on me: the emptiness only lingered around the idea of accomplishment. In my heart, the very heart through which all these words flow, I felt full. I don't write to get something, to win. I write, because I don't know what it is not to.

Plan

Put the lid on the boiling
pot
It'll come back to bite you in the ass
but you're too tired
tonight
to deal with the enormity of
life
better than you know
how.

Indeed

At last I sat at the word processor. At last the day spread out before me with nothing but this blank sheet of paper, with this story trying to make its way back into my blood stream. A small girl stood at the edge of the blinking cursor, reaching out her hand for me to lead the way. We started to walk, and I saw the end was much nearer than I had thought. Reluctantly, I buttoned her jacket, zipped up her bag. I had given her all I had, and all that remained was to let her go.

I miss her, I heard myself say last night on the phone and was surprised by the tears that rolled down my cheeks. Seeing her again today was such a sweet reunion, and I know why I dragged out the bookends. I closed the laptop, took a tumbler of whisky to the fire escape, and watched long drags of smoke circle out of my mouth into the East Village afternoon. Perhaps it was noisy, perhaps it was windy or cold or smelly, perhaps it was exhausting. But inside my body, all was quiet, all was still.

It was a most un-ordinary thing, indeed. 

S2:E4

We're over a half an hour into Jurassic Park
and the dinosaurs haven't even shown up yet

You think change could be good
But you might just be trying to convince yourself
to embrace something
out of your control

Front

It happens along the expressway, somewhere in the South Bronx: I look over through the gray rainy Sunday and see my city scattered around me, see foggy heavy afternoon light build a soft outline, see the patchwork that makes me breathe better than any person ever could. I sit on the subway, later, one color in a palette of uniques, how it comforts me. I looked at all the things I know, felt them in my heart, thought how distance makes the heart grow fonder and honey, just a few miles, just a few minutes away and I am reminded how I don't recognize my face in the mirror when you are not near, how being in your embrace grounds my shaking steps, every time. I think of leaving leaving, and it's as real as a punchline, it's a cruel joke, it's air. Jay-Z sits on a couch and speaks of creating, and you realize that there's a fire inside you you've taken for granted so you almost thought it wasn't real. It has been dirtied and used and lit with gas so you almost thought you couldn't trust it.

But while you've been busy with disbelief, while you've been busy with fear and sorrow over a love with scuff marks, that little fire has been been burning away steadily, has been warming your chest and lighting your way, and the only reason you haven't followed it properly is because you've let fear cloud it over. It rained today, I know.

It's up to you to clear these skies, though.

Away

It’s early morning when he leaves for the west coast, but you haven’t the time to think about it truly before your own car awaits. Stand on a street corner in an unknown part of town and flag her down, giggle like school girls all the way to the turnpike. 

The place is enormous, hidden in dancing mountains and northern boreal forests, you get lost three times in the dark Victorian paneling before finding your room. There are rocking chairs on the porch and you think you could spend a week there alone, watching the water sway and glitter. We hiked to the top of the cliff and they said you can see six states from here; I still couldn’t see you so I wasn’t sure the point. I sat in a steam room later and let all the demons evaporate from my pores: they were many, but I was persistent. I left with skin like a baby and spirit like a saint. 

I know I return to all the usual, to taxes and tooth ache, to unanswered questions and the emptiness you leave when you go, but for a short gleaming moment, all is still in my mind, for a short gleaming moment, I’m at peace. All the usual returns, but maybe I can meet them better than I was before. 

Bleed

You fell asleep in giggles, but when the morning came it brought news of death. A nephew turns two, it's strange how life carries on even when it stops, it does not bother. I stared into the wall for a minute, hearing her voice through the years, she was starting to look so much like her mother, her children just like her. A few blocks away, a furry companion spends his final hours blissfully unaware. I ran along the river yesterday and the flowers spread out like a blanket in every direction. How life carries on even when it stops, it does not bother. I pack bags and prepare birthday cakes. He looks at potential views on the west coast; everyone is the main character of their own story and you wonder how you'll have time to honor them all. Write the epic poems until your heart runs out of ink. The flowers spread out in every direction, life carries on, life returns, life explodes in your chest and once it is there it does not turn back it does not restrain itself, I feel it in my bones now, in the tingle of my skin now that winter is done and I will not turn back. I woke in giggles and I am not sorry. Spring is here. 

I am ready to come home. 

To Us

You wake early, but light, your lungs full of air. The dog doesn't so much as stir, you smile despite yourself. When the ghosts of feelings past return, you bring a fresh pot of coffee to the typewriter and dance through the thickets, weeding out unease and fear by putting them into words: neat, orderly, law-abiding words, they make sense along your spine. I went for a long run along the river later; I ran faster than I knew I could, faster than I should, but I did not stumble. There was a river of daffodils at my feet, a cushion of birdsong along my sides, the sun was bright and the waters trilling. The fear kept up for miles, the tears remained behind my eyelids, but then, bit by bit, they tired, they lost their power, and all that remained was me, panting, flushed, exhausted, but free.

I know the demons when they come, miss them, even, when they are away. The stories they tell aren't pretty, yet they belong in my blood just as much as the sunshine does.

The point, though, is they do not belong more.

Scar Tissue

And the truth is I don't know who I am without you.

Wicked Games

Another cold morning but the afternoon waxes and wanes in mild sunshine, it's a cruel game and you try your damnedest to laugh within the perimeters of the park. There's a bud here, if you don't look at it directly you can see it in the corner of your eye. The worlds around you collapse: in heartache, in cruel mortality, in subjective rejection. You think how grateful you are for these steady feet on the ground, these strong arms to hold as much of their weight as you can, but the truth is you haven't asked yourself how you are doing in ages. The truth is I haven't cried in months.

A dusty typewriter sits unused in the window. An evening stretches ahead without demands; they all lie in wait until morning because they like how the hangover clouds your judgment, drags rusty nails across your dry winter skin. You put a blank sheet of paper in the machine, roll it around, swig another glass of cheap sweet wine, and I begin to sing.

Grieve

She schedules an appointment with the vet and begins to count down minutes. I just have to get myself there, I don’t know how I’ll do it, she says, and your heart aches for her. He sits on your couch  with blank eyes and you know you would do anything to make them smile again. Your aunt lies dying  in a hospital and your father doesn’t remember to mention it, somehow his heart ached too much one day and he had to put it away. You vow to continue feeling everything, because you know the wave cannot drown you.

The other day, I ran past that part underneath the bridge where the water laps against a miniature beach and the seagulls rest (to gossip, no doubt), and I heard the ocean call me. It’s been a long, cold, lonely winter but it is over now. It’s been a blessed respite but now you are rested. It is time to set my heart on fire.

It is time to dive in deep.

At Last

When we come back inside, my cheeks flush with the first sunburn of the season. It doesn’t take much when the bar is so low, the skin is so pale, but there it is. We ran through Washington square park laughing, making friends with bums and tourists alike, proving to everyone that this moment is magic. The magnolia trees are in bloom now, there’s no turning back. 

Earlier this morning, on one of those confusing streets it takes so long to understand but which I now can never forget, I ran into a familiar face walking only the young dog while the older one stayed home, blind, worn, confused. I spoke with him this morning, she said, and it is time to let him go. Seventeen years of companionship, seventeen years of unconditional. There’s no way to make such a decision and then one day it has to be made. I nodded and hugged her, our eyes full of tears, before I had to run. The crocus beds tire in the warm afternoon, but the cherry trees are aching to burst. Life is precious. You vow to take none of it for granted. 

Roxy Music

Sore limbs make their way through windy SoHo Sunday streets. The tourists are back and you practice your eye rolls as they shuffle against the grain. Images of hours past flash before you while you weave north with the traffic: unfamiliar buildings stacked outside the window, designer details and late night cocktails, warm skin against your fingertips and words that have to swim through your turmoiled blood streams before landing against your spine. A little voice inside you is terrified, but she doesn't speak for you anymore. Because there's another voice whispering, and though she is quiet, she is convincing: this is so worth it you know not the half of it.

The bartender bought my drink last night, and I knew it was New York winking. I looked at my pale skin this morning and it's like after so many years of knowing each other, I am only now beginning to recognize it as my own. When I woke up, you were still awake and writing. I felt so safe. I return to my own bed, the dog snores, Monday morning looms: I don't know the half of how good things can be.

But I’m starting to.

Q train

I rode the Manhattan bridge across the water today
gray rainy mid day train car full of MTA construction workers and their multi-colored lanterns

and the sky was the color of the bricks, a century of smog around their edges

But as we climbed that bridge
and the buildings tic tac toed themselves into scattered order, 

as the familiar skyline outlined itself, 

as every water tower in Brooklyn popped itself into my field of vision like a 

bubble, 

my chest filled
and filled
and filled
with a longing and a love for these
bricks in my veins I have not had the peace of mind lately to
consider

The weather didn’t seem so dreary then,
the winter not so unending
To have a home after years of flailing
To know love after so long in the dark
Seemed a most beautiful gift

I will unwrap for as long as I possibly can.

Text

I looked at apartment listings today. It always happens when the Spring comes, when May approaches, when the itch returns. I wrote a hundred to do lists and most of them only said to throw everything out. None of these things matter, anyway. So long as you have ink, so long as you have your trusty coffee cup, so long as you have a window with a view and magic in your chest, so long as the dream of New York beats wildly in your heart what else could you possibly need?

The sun did not shine today as I had decided. But in apartment listings, in white painted walls and brick fireplaces near Tompkins Square Park, in futures yet untold and better views from a writing window, somehow it was already spring. When the sun returns,
I will be ready.

Submissions

She writes from the other coast. Saves me the weather report, the pleasant way the breeze lingers in the palm trees, as I navigate lingering snow piles from a morning storm. April has never looked so bleak; we are all made fools.

She says the furniture arrives Friday, but she moves in Thursday.  It'll be empty, clean, new. I'll be sleeping in a metaphorical place of potential. There is a magic in first nights in new places. White walls onto which to project your dreams of a new life. Empty cupboards without the weight of an old one in them yet. Bare bones and the freedom in simplicity. I walked home itching to slash and burn the innards of my little room, let the tidal wave in to wash away the debris. So fresh, so clean.

Spring doesn't arrive on its own. We have to earn it. Create the flood, paint your potential.

When I wake tomorrow, I will the sun to shine. And I will not give up until it does.

Little Prince

They say tomorrow it will snow, but today you wore a light jacket and you will not forget it. The tooth still hurts, but you are breathing now and it was all you asked. The books of your own homework stack ten feet high but you will do them, you will finish page after page until you recognize the face in the mirror again. There was a moment when I looked into your eyes that every cell in my body was at peace.

For that moment alone I would wade through books a mile in every direction.