Noted

She writes you late at night, so late that it's become summer daylight in her Arctic corner of the world, there's a manic magic to it that your heart knows and misses. I just don't need to sleep, she says as she stumbles home from her studio. You speak of the world and she sends you poetry, a conversation that began years ago and never really ended, only changed color a little as you both learned to surf the agony of being alive. If they make me choose between love and art, I must choose art, she says, her chest like lead. I wish I didn't have to choose. You think of your deals with the devil and wonder if you're trying to renegotiate the terms of service. A stray thought dances off to cabins in the wilderness, to midnight sun and Pacific solitude, to a life in motion and discovery and the Word constantly at your fingertips. You remember the colors of your dreams and wonder how you got so comfortable in convention.

But I sat today with the Word at my side, I rolled in its fallen leaves and nurtured its hesitating sprouts, I danced in a story that spoke to me as though it weren't my own and it made me forget the time on my clock, the hunger in my belly, the sorrow on my brow. I sat today with the Word as my companion and remembered a lifetime in love with its steady comfort, a lifetime in awe of its magic. I have wrestled with the angel and I am stained with light and I have no shame. How many hours have passed, I cannot say, it does not matter. A story builds and weaves through my fevered limbs, my tooth hurts, the mouse eats the peanut butter off the traps and leaves unscathed, a rent check sweeps through to clean out my bank account, I have wrestled with the angel and I am stained with light 
and 
I 
have 
no 
shame.

I resign the lease. Succumb to the deal I've made.

Heathcliff

Sort through your messy closet, find old cobwebs that no longer suit you, relics of other lives to be saved just in case but you haven't lived your life just in case for years, why start now. The garbage bag grows as you shed layers you didn't know you were storing inside yourself: how light you feel. The soundtrack is sunshine. Yes it was cold out there, today, but summer grows in your chest from the inside and will not be stopped. It builds and builds until it finally spills over and beams out of every strand of your unruly hair.

I laughed today like I couldn't remember pain, it comes like a gift and I know to be grateful for it. My teeth still hurt, the apartment is a maze of mousetraps, but my closet is clean and summer swims with adventures ahead. I laughed today like I couldn't remember pain and soon I will laugh like I can't forget that life is ours for the taking.

It is here now.

Watch me.

Letters

A weekend comes and goes in boroughs. The temperature drops 30 degrees, your walk of shame spends an entire day in shivers and borrowed clothes. The factory is half abandoned; you uncover vast empty floors with Manhattan views and dress yourselves with ear plugs, listening to the sound of rushing blood behind your temples. It makes you dizzy and peaceful all at once, everything is giggles. The early hours are like the first bites of a craved breakfast: no consequence, no bitter after taste, the whole beautiful meal ahead of you. The last minutes, on the other hand, are cold and leave you nauseous, trembling on a subway platform in Queens and rolling your eyes that you could be surprised again at the bleeding gashes in your chest.

A train came, at last, rocked me gently as it dipped into the underworld and brought me back to the island, my mainland. The wind was still cold, but these streets are familiar. The grid does not overwhelm me, does not catch me by surprise, the grid knows slow and steady and reliable in ways I still struggle to master.

I go to the boroughs to get punched in the gut. I fear if I don't bleed enough, Manhattan won't hold me as sweetly as it does when I return.

Destination

There's a picture of their kids, all lined up in someone's backyard, everyone smiling - it's summer - and all I can think of is how there's a special kind of grass in the desert suburbia where I grew up; when I look at the picture I can feel it between my toes. I hear late night sprinklers, feel the apricot sun on my skin, I remember just how it felt to live a life in that space and it sits in my heart without remorse. Sometimes I wonder if everyone thinks so much about their memories.

The typewriter creaked today when I stroked it. It didn't resist, but the prose was not easy work, all missteps and smudges, words stumbling upon each other and childish turns of phrase. The point is, it still moved when I touched it. The point is, there are still words left to write, stories left to tell that I haven't discovered yet, there is work left to be done but the point is if you think it's worth doing, the treasures that lie on the other side
are
all
yours.

Grace

The mouse comes out from his hiding place in my closet. Scuttles along the baseboards, looking for a way out. I watch him from my desk as he sniffs the closed door, considers the rolled up yoga mat. When he hears me, he runs straight back into the closet and hides behind the a/c unit, a silent behemoth still biding its time. You wish you were more appalled. It's a beautiful, sunny morning, my running shoes are already tied, my inbox rattles with tickets to all manner of adventure, the best drugs in life are these. The ghosts yell and scream with all their might but when you stop to truly look at them, aren't they pitiful? I am not afraid of you, little monsters. It just took me a while to remember.

Mercy

Summer arrives. Throngs of residents and tourists stream out of tall buildings and populate the flower beds, the smell of air conditioning permeates lobbies and offices. I leave work in the early afternoon with nothing ahead but freedom, it’s a beautiful gift and I carry it gently. Board a ferry to Staten Island and watch the city twinkle from afar; it looks like a mirage. Twelve years I have known this little plot of land, this maze of streets, this jungle of dreams; twelve years I have known it and I have never loved it more than I do now. There were honeymoons and overs, there was heartbreak and hesitation but honey we always came back to one another, I always believed the magic would still be there.

As the ferry returned to Battery Park, past the statue that tells you you are home, swerving around the edge of Brooklyn and depositing us back on land where I can breathe, I felt a peace in my chest that I knew would carry me through. You have to work at love.

But it helps to believe in magic.

Lullaby

I run. I cannot get myself to stop. It pulls at me in every still moment, it lures me with promises of salvation. In a river of fair-weather joggers I lose myself, let go. My demons join, of course, they shout encouragement and scorn like a pack of 1980's horror b-movie monsters; it's endearing. I carry on long conversations with all manner of ghosts. Sometimes they respond, sometimes they get bored with my desperation and vanish as I get sidetracked by the lights on the bridge at sundown. The demons tire eventually, too. They call it a night and leave me to a strange silence and sore legs. I buy myself peace with pain. It's a trope.

The truth is, May runs through me like a whirlwind, like a manic pixie dream girl I long for all winter. Maybe it's the excruciating silence but I remember again who I am, what I came for. I remember the way I look people in the eye when my back is straight, I remember how near adventure is when you reach for it. I remember how my body is a messy tangle of magic and if I open this lid it'll burst out, you better watch out it's contagious. I knew this was real even when it seemed impossible, I'm not sure you heard me, but no matter.

I'll be shouting it from the rooftops, shortly.

Bless

Return to the island to find it sweeter than you left it: the evening like velvet, the trees lush but the air breathing like it still can in May. I went for a run in the twilight, the sky in peach fire behind me and the river like silver ahead. Skyscrapers in New York take on a blue gleam all their own in early summer sunsets, you had forgotten what it felt like but the sensation greeted you like an old relative you love without question. The warm night grew beads of sweat on my brow that turned into rivers along the small of my back, I took long, light steps and looked at the moon, let the twinkling lights of the Chrysler building guide me home eventually, turned on a happy song and danced all the way into the numbered avenues.

My heart is breaking, make no mistake, my flesh bleeds and bleeds and tries to put itself together again crookedly, I stumble each morning when I remember the weights around my ankles, but it is spring now, the world lives again, and somewhere, somehow, so do I. The magic of May is stronger than my pain, the power of life anew beats in my lungs, runs in my veins, screams in every hair along my arm; I want to throw out everything that is dead, clean this room, clean this mind, a whole new book told itself to me while I ran and all I want is to sit at that typewriter and pound furiously into the silver Manhattan nights while the street corner sweats outside, I want to see the world and smile at strangers, I endured an entire cold dark winter but spring is here now, I am here now, and try as I might I cannot stay indifferent to the fireworks of the season.

We suffer so long. We've earned the right to dance a little.

1998

It's been too many nights 
with
to now suddenly be 
without

(no title)

You wake early, tossing and turning in a strange home and mindful not to miss the alarm from the next room. When at last it is time, you go in to find a mad mess of hair and a wondrous smile waiting; she giggles through the rest of the morning and you don't remember to be tired. It rains without end, a prince gets married, you are left to your own devices and they look so much like demons from where you're standing, they eat you from inside.

You tie your laces and wait for a break in the downpour. Know even with all this practice you still can't outrun yourself.

Seismic

It's cold again. In the film, two friends walk through Los Angeles and weed out their complicated lives; every turn is sunshine and blue skies and sunshine. Your teeth hurt. You wonder if your relationship with the dentist is a metaphor for your approach to life. There's an ostrich buried here somewhere but you're pretending not to see it. The movie doesn't end well.

You make the bed, turn down the lights. Think tomorrow is another day, a clean slate, a chance to do better.

Wonder how many times you can make yourself believe it.

Afters

The night is cool and sticky at the same time, a headache throbs beneath your temples but the little light burns so calmly in your chest, unperturbed. The streets are loud again, but you are quiet, even as you ramble: you are safe. He asks what you’ve learned about children and you think tenderly of 20 years worth of humans whose hands you’ve held, whose stories you’ve heard, whose laughter you’ve joined. Perhaps you were only trying to heal the cracks in your own broken history, but if it means 20 years of loving unconditionally those who should never know less, perhaps we can allow it.

I still sleep on one side of the bed. My muscle memory misses you on the other.

Little Boxes

Sing the song you're meant to sing.

You realize these sheets of paper have lied empty, unwritten, for far too long. You no longer recognize your face in the mirror, the skin underneath your fingertips. There's grime in this closet that hasn't been touched in ages. I told her what it was like to be 25 and discover you could leap and land on your feet, and now I've been on my feet so long I forget what it was like to fly. You believe you can be happy and also free, believe you can barrel through art and still feel the soil underneath your feet.

As the days pass, you just don't remember how to go about it.

Apres moi

Eventually you get so used to a grating heart
that you forget what it was like in fireworks

But sit a minute
Listen carefully:

The heart has not.

I-90

Everybody is telling me to be hard, 
but I am soft. 

A day passes in intoxication, a town free of ghosts, a grey sky without expectations, you move from bar to bar and marvel at the peace. Spring runs rampant in the greenspaces, you shake blossoms from trees and hover over travel booking sites like they have the power to cleanse you. There is no geographical solution to an emotional problem, floats through your diluted bloodstream but it can’t hurt to try (again). We rambled down bookstore aisles and I thought make deals with the devil, he’ll hold you to your word. Go to bed exhausted, freed. In the morning do it all over and be none the wiser.

Everybody is telling me to be hard,
I tell him,
but I am soft.

I think the soft people will win in the end,
is all he replies.

Slipping now

Port Authority, seven am on a Saturday when the bums still own it and its grimy sadness is not yet ruffled by the happy glitz of a disneyfied 42nd street; I know this hall too well by now, we walked it too many times to forget and here is where we pretended to have a fight because we thought we mattered to each other. I’m going to my sister’s, don’t call me, except this sister is a bottomless well in a college town, see if I care.

Cross over into Jersey, remember what it was like to see the skyline through another’s eyes; the suburbs are suddenly lush, wet, encroaching. The city is trying so hard to comfort me lately, it glitters and smiles, remains steadfast and reassuring, but I am not ready for its embrace I cried before we’d even left the Bronx. There is no shame, these are only feelings; you turned out to be human but you can take it back.

The rain picks up as you near the northeast. You no longer sleep. There’s a tequila shot with your name on it but a tiny light at the back of your heart with somebody else’s. You hold it carefully as you barrel into oblivion. Wonder what things will look like on the other side.

Shuffled Through

A week roils your steps despite blue skies, the choice is not yours. I sat in a bar on Avenue B in the early afternoon and read a book, pretending it wasn't mine: it was. A mountain of words build inside me, a landslide, spring arrives at last in the city and it's more beautiful than you could possibly have remembered, all lilac scents and cherry blossom seas on the lawn; my heart bleeds and bleeds and I decide for once not to patch it up and leave it to its usual scarring but see what happens if I just let it sit there, each beat pounding thick, sticky, dark honesty into the May evenings: some days I think I'll drown in it, some days my lungs forget to breathe but I walked through the Lower East Side on a warm Friday evening with the neighbors on the stoop, with the soothing cacophony of a city that always did fine without you, and I remembered in a finite life every second matters but in the end we are just matter; in the end this heart will have bled itself dry but there's a landslide waiting behind it, once or twice I've been on the floor but the grime is familiar and I will bathe it in my words, and the words will wash it clean, the words will tell me I do not need this heart now in the end we are dust but ink is forever so
mean
what you
say.

Patchwork

A dozen drafts lie scattered around my computer, all trite nonsense and feigned spirit. The truth is all I do is sleep. The truth is this room is a mess, this heart is a mess, the truth is no Instagram filter in the world can make this look right but it's only life, no more no less. 

I pick up the clothes from the floor. Fold up the knitwear for storage. Start somewhere. 

Eventually you'll get where you're going.

Honey, It's Alright

I woke with a start, the night still dark and the bed empty. Memories returned, not like a rolling wave but like a clap of thunder, and I tumbled out of bed to grasp at straws. Maybe this should be enough, she says but you don't know yet. The heart breaks and breaks and lives by breaking, but you are infuriated by the strange whims of the universe. There isn't enough vodka in this household to get you through the storm on my doorstep; perhaps I will not let it in. I forget to eat but not to cry on the subway, that part is effortless. The city swelters in a heatwave, everything is in bloom. You wonder how many times you have to break before you're allowed to live.

Arrive

The sun rises over a quiet park, the cherry trees laden with thick pink petals and everything is a dream. I walked around the park later and breathed it in, remembering what summer smells like, how the streets dance beneath your feet, how everything lives again. You long to throw out everything you own and start fresh. There's a smile on your face that even rain cannot wash away.

It is here now. And thus, so are you.