New York, NY

It feels different this time, she says as she peers into your empty room. It’s like you’re really leaving. She’s not wrong. A little suitcase stands by the door, how could it possibly contain all the life I’ll need from now until winter? I check in on a flight with no return ticket. There is some sort of penance being paid, but it’s not clear what for. Five years ago today I returned to this place and it still seems like a dream, every day still feels like a honeymoon and maybe that’s what love is, you’re getting closer.

New York woke me in sunshine this morning, beautiful crisp September sunshine the kind that breathes in your lungs for you. My steps were light towards the river, smiling at strangers and reveling in one last good run before departure. At the Williamsburg bridge, a man climbed the cables and said he had nothing worth living for, so what harm would it do to stop. The tears surprised me, the way my breath forgot its timetable, here we are on the ground with our frivolous lives and one person a few hundred feet away is trying to end his. The tennis courts remained busy. The city giveth, the city taketh away. This moment is not about me, I stammer over the phone line, but somehow it was all of us: that life is fragile, and beautiful, and finite, and you owe it to the Universe to spend yours better than you thought you deserved. Five years ago today I stepped onto a red-eye flight and thought I had bought myself just another few moments of magic, how could I know I had given myself the world? I walked through the West Village later with a song in my step, with a beat in my heart, with the reminder that distance makes your blood boil and the flowers bloom, I do not fear this departure because it is only an adventure, and adventures were made for the fearless.

I go to bed early, set my alarms for dawn, sleep a dreamless sleep.

What dreams could I have?

I am here.

Would Be Enough

How beautiful a September Saturday in New York, all soft sunshine and gentle breezes. The children laughed and danced with aged hardcore punks in the old park, I found pictures today from my first life in the city: the Domino factory still standing, the Brooklyn side of the East River still bombed out brick decay, the downtown skyline so low in the years in between; the Empire State looking exactly the same, the bridges steadfast and unrelenting, taxicabs on a street corner the most reliable fixture in your life. The bartender gives us free drinks, everything's a laugh. I forget how the city has changed even under my watchful eye, but perhaps the same could be said for me. I am not the girl who first came here, all home knit leg warmers and fear of the world. You are not who you were when you first set foot in this river, everything changes.

There's a kernel in your chest, though, which has whispered the same truth to you for all the years of your life. It whispered when the world around you was loud and you heard nothing, it whispered when you stepped away into a quiet spot and begged to hear it, it whispered when you took wrong turns and couldn't see yourself for all the road blocks. If you sit real still, just for a moment, and let your ears listen, you'll still hear a truth so sweet it'll break your heart. That is who you are. No river can wash that away.

From the Sidewalk

The room becomes piles of bags, empty shelves. It looks like a move. My roommate sniffs around the space nervous, wonders what I'm playing at. Would that I knew. There's a relief in packing, but leaving is wrought with fear. I fell asleep today on the express train in Queens; awoke with a start at Roosevelt Ave and for a moment didn't know anything, didn't feel anything, strange dreams lingered and wouldn't say if they were real life after all. Sometimes I think I make life harder than it needs to be. A small child ran into my arms today, laughing; we snuggled over books and she's never known life without me, I threw away the first piece of furniture I ever bought in this city and I don't know, somehow my restless soul began to commit to something, decided not to run so much. All this I was trying to tell you, but autumn wraps its cold spindly fingers around my throat, I'm so tired I fall asleep on strangers, I'm so weak my screams get caught in my throat and sound like butterfly whispers, perhaps this is the dream
what
a
nightmare.

Go On

Late night in Brooklyn Heights, the streets are black, the subway platform is being cleaned with a pressure washer, it's a stark contrast, or a metaphor, you can't be sure. I turned around halfway down the street to look at the window, to look at the light, to look at an entire life that fell from between my fingers, what use is there in remembering now. I threw out the old mattress, I cleaned out my closet, the room looks so empty suddenly. I ran my fingers over things I once knew, over things that felt like home though they weren't mine, I have been homeless for so long I didn't know it could feel like that, and now it doesn't again. I believe in all the good things to come; it's just so hard not to feel like I'm at the poker table with all my jewels being swept away from me. It's just hard not to feel like I had the Great Pearl and now am left with only the grain of sand once more. I turn it over in my hand, try to tell myself that I am not the diver but the oyster itself. I am not the wave but the entire fucking ocean.

It's just some days I am no wave, no ocean, no oyster. Some days I am only human, tattered at the seams and frail and soft and losing, losing, losing. Some days I live a script entirely foreign, it wasn't the part I'd asked for, these lines don't feel right on my lips.

But the script is mine now. And a pearl means nothing still in its shell. 

Parting

(let your purpose
be bigger
than your fear)

Siempre

This morning I found a penny in the street at Broadway/Lafayette, the city looks out for me, sends me an encouraging nudge. I woke ten feet under a hangover but these things pass, all things pass, I walked down a street in Fort Greene and tried to make it look different than last time. I suppose it did, but isn't it mostly smoke and mirrors, if you're being honest? Deconstruct and reconstruct the way your story sounds in unknown eyes. You know the formula for a best seller, it drips off your tongue, but this canvas hasn't been properly cleaned since last use: the smoke gets in my eyes, the mirror shards cut deep gashes in my hands, these pools of sticky dark truth weren't part of the paperback sales agreement. I sat on the Q train later, crossing the Manhattan Bridge after dark, and watched the twinkling lights of the island: for a short moment, it looked exactly like the first time I saw it, that cold fall so many years ago when I looked at the city like I'd fallen in love, when the city looked at me like it knew my name and I never wanted anyone else to speak it, perhaps that's what love is and you had it right all along.

Some stories write themselves,
and all you have to do is let them.

to Move

No, it wasn't Limelight, I think it was the Anvil, anyway you couldn't go there late at night and the transvestite hookers would take their customers to the loading docks of what is now the Chelsea Market, I saw it all from my window anyway then AIDS came and wiped it all away I lost 40 friends in just a few years it was a massacre. 

The old loft on the corner of Bedford is giddy with recollection, wide windows staring at a midtown in transition, how everyone steps into this river in their own time, it is never the same. I walked home along Washington Square Park and breathed deep a city I know only in my time, how my greatest regret is not having been here when. This town evolves again and again even under our watchful eyes, it will never live up to the fairytale we've made it and yet we never let the dream go. I get the drugs prescribed by my doctor now, it's just as well. Everybody saw David Bowie at some point, he is not gone.

It turns out to be a miracle simply that we are alive. We survive on our own naïve conviction; friends and family and complete strangers die, through no fault of their own, through coincidental wrong turns at a stoplight, people die all the time and yet here we are, alive, and with time left to realize our potential. Narcissistic ignorance carries us through to another day: of course it will work out, of course we will find something better; how else could we possibly go on? Even our heroes died, and yet here we are, refilling our glasses and toasting to the creative madness within.

You are alive.
That, alone, means you owe it to the world to wow us
with what you have yet
to give.

Full of Mumbles

(I came out of the woods 
by choice)

Around mile marker five, it happened. A strange tingle in my spine, a beat in the music that lifted me, how much faster my legs, how much stronger the breath in my lungs. I don't know why, but I smiled, I don't know why, but I practically laughed the whole way back under the bridges, do you know I asked the Universe for a chance to grow and this was never what I wanted so be careful what you wish for but here we are, and it will all be alright. When I told you I'm afraid of everything I wasn't lying, it's just that I've made peace with my fear and the point of life is do it anyways. We sat in a dark bar on 3rd avenue that has looked the same as long as I've known him, that's looked the same for decades of Irish drunks and sawdust on the floor, life changes from under us but every now and then we get the chance to see each other as we were and remember what a Good Life we've had. I let him go at the Bleecker Street subway station and bittersweet still has the word sweet in it.

I asked the Universe for a chance to prove myself and this wasn't what I had in mind but I'm getting exactly what I asked for, do you hear me Universe? I regret nothing.

I am terrified of the wishes you granted me but
I
do
it
anyways.

To See Me Though

The flood passes across the city, leaves only fresh skies and a quiet sunset over midtown skyscrapers. I weave through the suits of Grand Central and think how little I want their lives. They make for a nice backdrop. The second I hand over the keys I miss New York, wonder how I'll get by without it.

I wrote a sentence this morning so true that I'm still reeling from it except reeling is not the right word I'm dancing. I'm weaving this tapestry to a fucking magic carpet, try and stop me, you can't get more in my way than I can, you don't think I've spent my life battling this enemy? That's enough now. I ran along the water at noon, sun straight up, sweat in my eye, how tired was I, but it doesn't matter anymore. These feet will run on their own, these words will write themselves, I will fan these flames until the whole damn forest catches fire
just
watch
me

Lucky

Wake
From your sleep

A young Harvard grad jumps to take the room. How different it looks when seeing it through someone else's eyes: how much I could easily throw away. It's refreshing. I begin to pack in my mind; all I want to bring is stacks of paper, an unassuming painting over my desk, a bottle of liquor. She writes from the office bathroom to say he doesn't want me, and wonders how a room full of male coworkers will perceive her puffy eyes. We offer words of consolation, but what good are words? What are words but a substitute?

What are words but a substitute

The question is so terrifying I have to pack it away with the other things a young Harvard grad doesn't need to see. I pour a big glass of whisky, stare at the typewriter. There's a calm in me I haven't felt for months, in the silence at last the words arrive, hesitant, but there. What are words but a substitute.

Today 
We escape

We escape

Re:Hearse

The words return with the season.

I no longer sleep. The street goes silent after midnight, everything breaks, my mind races with stories, every time I close my eyes I have to open them again to jot something new down, I am not sorry. Every time I close my eyes the void grows and grows like the empty space at the other side of the bed I do not rest. Every sentence reads itself to me like a poem, every word is a weapon, I see the spoken word enthusiasts fight their battles on a stage and I cannot push the computer keys hard enough for this emphasis. I saw a dead man in the street today, passed out on the Bowery on his cardboard bed, eyes open staring at the skies, beautiful sunny Sunday in a cleaned up city that never sleeps, only lives or dies and at 2:30 in the morning when even the garbage trucks rest you do not know which you would prefer. His eyes were so hollow; there was no meaning to derive. We sat in an apartment in Chinatown with the roof sagging and I thought there is still magic here it is your duty to find it but the cigarettes don't taste so good when you've forgotten about them for a while, it's disappointing.
The words return when there is space for them to.
I make all the space in the world, I throw out my entire closet, I burn the furniture, I carve out my insides, there is not room for anything else in this hollow shell of a person, one day in my youth I made a deal with the devil and he does not forget. The words are here now, they make my toes tingle, they make my sentences run on like they're running out of time to be spoken, like I'm running out of time to be read, but the devil sits at the foot of my bed smiling because he knows he can pull the sheets from my body, pull the sleep from my eyes, he pulls the warmth from the little flame inside my chest and all because I said the word would set my whole
world
on
fire.

And Yet

We took the boat out, sunny Saturday in Chelsea and all the rich white Manhattan yuppies yell insults  at each other on the narrow bike path, but as soon as we left dock, how different the world. We coasted along the Hudson, watching the west side trill along silently in the afternoon, all brick stacks and water towers in a giddy patchwork once the glass monoliths of midtown receded in the distance. How my heart filled, how much gratitude swam behind my eyelids as the wind blew my hair to a mess. How love is not desperate: it only builds and grows.

The words return with the season. The streets return, the hum in the air that reminds me the city never left, all the things that let me sleep well at night sift in through my open window, the world beams at me. Yet some street corners remain shrouded in darkness, some steps I stumble, every few breaths get knocked right out of me. The sunny days try to fill a void that refuses filling, the sweet caresses of the city try to distract my skin from remembering how it breathed under your touch, I sleep well at night but I'm not sure it matters.

How a heart can be so full,
and yet so empty
all at once.

Barrow

How different 

A city

Just a few blocks westwards. 

I sit in the window and stare at a neighborhood I once called mine; from up here you can see the bright lights of midtown, the quiet courtyards of old brick buildings that lived when the country was new. It’s quiet, so quiet, and I can’t open a window without ruining the central air thermostat, it’s at once a palace and a prison. We walked down the west side piers and I saw my city as if for the first time. Maybe that’s what love is. 

Last night, I lay writhing in my bed, unable to sleep, well aware of every lost minute’s rest. The days are long but the life is short. He smiled at me but I thought this is only a means to an end. 

It might sound callous. But I have poetry and magic waiting in the wings,

Don’t tell me you wouldn’t do the same. 

Anew

I post an ad for my room. Dates flexible. With every reply, my body feels lighter, my soul closer to freedom. I wonder how long I could stay away, wonder at all the places I can go. I am not untethered, I am not lost, I am only dancing through the world knowing I built a safe harbor to come back to because it lives in me. Fall waits like a bogeyman in my closet but September is kind, encouraging, I check off items on my to do list and feel order arrange itself within me. A little girl appears at my side, in all the ruckus I forgot about her completely, I’m sorry I didn’t have enough heart to write your story I’ve just been trying to have enough heart to live. But I am here now, I am growing this heart beyond itself, I am growing every muscle I have to be soft and strong at the same time, my success is not an absence of tears but an abundance of love, fall waits like a monster but September is warm, yet, and only the beginning of everything. When all the ducks lined up in my chest, they made room for poetry, they made room for all the mad sparks and magic dust and when the Universe shines its light on your heart you had damn better be ready to open a window and see it.

Dawn

And then, at last, it turns. I woke in a fog, laced the running shoes despite myself, and let the mist push through my cells until it lifted over the bridges. A hurricane grows in the south, it rises the waters against the remaining pier pillars of the East River; I stared and stared at the waves as they crashed, my breaths heavy, my muscles screaming. By the time I stopped, my shirt clung to my skin but my mind soared. Drama swims past my timeline, but I got a moment's reprieve, I got a day of checked to do lists, a day of giggles and adventure, a day of hope. Remind yourself that you've never been a passive participant in your own life, she says. A book prints across the water with my name in it, but I don't need to move a single block to remember my name.

If I sit quietly, just for a moment, and wait, this city will whisper it to me again, and again, and again, until the day comes when I believe what it says.

Untils

Come with us to Mexico, she says, and you no longer pretend to look for excuses. Tickets pile up under your pillow, they flutter and giggle and fall out of your pockets as you walk, what salvation they bring to your ailing soul. The rain refuses to let up, you drown but slowly, miss your alarms. I'm only going through the motions. Fake it till you make it.

Fake it till the tickets mend all the pieces that broke.

New Moon

I wear tights again. Their constricting design and cinched waist remind me how September strangles summer, how you will be wrapped up and buried alive now for months to come. It rains. A psychic told me my new year begins now, and so far he's been right about everything else so who am I to judge. I sit at the typewriter tearing drivel into its seams; this is not what I'm supposed to be singing about. The typewriter knows it too, but consents. Give a monkey unlimited time and it'll write Hamlet, after all.

It's just that my time is not unlimited. I sat under the desert stars one night and wished for the world, but the Universe gives you such crooked instructions to reach it, I've begun drawing maps of my own.  It's getting cold out there, and just as cold in here, I sleep so well at night, it's my days that fill themselves with nightmares. My maps burn up while I'm lost in the brambles.

Wall Street

The mouse returns. I see it in every corner, every shadow. It moves the traps under the sink without ever setting them off. The weather drops, and I bury myself under covers while the windows are open. One night in the West Village I got so stoned that I walked home without feeling a single cell in my body.

The days pass. I smile in the right places, frown when appropriate. I make lists, plans, I go out to drinks, but do you want to know a secret? I feel nothing when I do it. Like January had sunk its teeth in me and forgotten to let go with the sunshine. I walk forward, one step at a time, and it looks like I get where I'm going. But my skin is numb when you touch me, and I don't know how to make the trip end.

List

I wake in a fog of last night’s cheap red wine, and even after I’ve managed to make the coffee I forget to drink it. Sort through the evening’s conversation to make sure I remember how ridiculous they may have been; everything is giggles if you want it. I say yes to the Caribbean. A new story writes itself in my head while I walk home from the grocery store. I look people in the eye as they pass me and wonder if they know what it’s like to have magic inside your chest.

Later, in a quiet west village duplex, I pile lists on top of each other. A new year begins, a clean slate of possibility and adventure. I flex my muscles, test my lungs in the clear air, I had a dream last night that broke my heart but it did not break me. 

I do not breathe like I never felt fear.
I breathe like I felt fear,
and decided to live regardless.

Where It Happens

Normalcy, when it returns, feels so familiar you have to pinch yourself to remember there was ever anything else. I went for a run, at last -- after weeks of illness my body longed for the pavement; my lungs wheezed the whole way to the bridges, but they endured. I help my roommate put up blinds, we all pile into her room and giggle over how ridiculous a life. The nights are dark now, but warm still; a little candle burns at the edge of my desk, it smells like stories, like life. I write myself birthday letters and smile at the prospect of a clean slate, a new year, unending possibilities. Remember that love is strength, that soft isn't weak, that fear is only a feeling. I had a dream last night that broke my heart, but the thing is it didn't break me, and I think there's a difference there worth not ignoring. I still woke in sunshine.

I still woke as sunshine.

I think there's a difference there worth not ignoring.

Lottery

Wednesday morning, September. The calendar is empty, you spend the early hours doing double takes at its page, trying to remember what to do with such a gift. A familiar soundtrack plays in your room, it recognizes fall, and purpose, and the act of sitting at that god damned white sheet of paper and making something of it. The moment feels like walking into your childhood home, a room you know in your blood stream but had let fall through your fingers; how it knows your very core and has only been waiting for your return.

I know I've been off in the weeds, for much too long trying to pick up the pieces of myself lost in the fire, I know I've been all talk and no sobriety, while my actual life sat waiting in the wings. I overslept this morning but my cough is gone, I think the babysteps are turning into toddler tumbles, I think we're moving in the right direction, it isn't life if you're not terrified, it's not
worth it if you don't
prove yourself
braver
than you knew
you could be.

Up that Hill

Come to the Caribbean, they say again, and you begin to run out of excuses. September is here, the real world is here but you're not sure your place in it, there's a rumor you can cherry pick the rules to which you want to adhere, there's a rumor life is beautiful and just what you make it and some days you're ready to believe the hype. We spent the morning in the sunny corner of a restaurant lauded in every travel guide book; the tourists all ordered pancakes and you didn't have the heart to judge them.  The world returns to normal, and if nothing else the setup is comfortable, predictable. You didn't think predictable was for you, but then, you've been wrong about so many things this year that maybe it's out of your hands. Let us be lovers, we'll marry our fortunes together, and the joke is the fortunes were inside ourselves the whole time. You order eggs, try to hold the lightness in your breath as long as it lets you.

November is such a sad month, what harm can it do not to look it in the eyes when it comes?

Take the A Train

Broadway runs the entire length of an island that doesn’t know how to stop, it passes a million different lives, none like the other. I emerge from the subway as in a whole other world. Everything is quiet, suburban: it makes me uneasy. But a few blocks later, there is the river, this great glorious majestic slow snake at sunset, the George Washington Bridge holding two different planets together across it. A couple in Fort Tryon Park dance to no music other than Sunday afternoon peace at the top of the world. Your father calls and explains it’s not really a mountain, there’s a geological reason for the elevation but all you know is you can see the horizon from here and you breathe a different rhythm.

At 204th street a hydrant is open, generations pile into lawn chairs on the street and curate the soundtrack for an entire block, smoking their cigars and gossiping in languages you don’t understand. Your father ask what you’re doing, you wanted to live in the country, you wanted peace, what happened? He buys a new house and paces it impatiently before even moving in, 65 years of pacing and he still doesn’t know where he belongs. I have peace, I say, I have home. He makes you mute the microphone every time a siren passes by.

I don’t have a map for the life yet, I don’t have the answers. But I keep walking the streets, keep filling in the grid, decorate the corners as I go, eventually I’ll see where they lead. Eventually I’ll know where life lead me, and know where I lead my life.