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.