Newark

The day swelters outside your window; you refresh apps and calculate costs. At last stumble down the steps of your stoop and into an unknown car, these are the gifts you give yourself. Snail through the West Village, remember the first time you took a car through these streets to the tunnel, how everything you owned rested in the trunk of that car and New York slowly faded behind you. Another sunny day, another throng of traffic, how you cried into the comfortable silence of a cabbie on the phone.

Later, at the end of a terminal, sit staring at the city from afar, as you always do. It's a habit, borne of love, 12 years you've sat in this strange space and stared at it, sometimes in tears, sometimes only in the joy of knowing it is yours whether you are near it or not. How I've tested your love lately, New York, and my own in return: this is what life is, and we do not break from the trials. We merely bend, recoup, and find our way back to each other. This is what love is.

A strange calm settles over me, it always does in this strange space, I should have remembered to expect it, I should have had faith in the process. I can leave you, New York, for a minute or a month, you remain etched in my muscle memory regardless. I can leave you, New York, without leaving you behind, I can run into the world without running away, I should have known to remember, forgive me my momentary stumble. I spoke with the Universe this morning and everything is under control: that which will come, will come. My heart loves and loves and grows by loving, I miss you now but only in fondness. Soon I will sleep in your mad peace again. This heart will remember your name until then.