Elastic Heart

Early morning, Queens, N.Y., the first commuters fill the train while I squeeze in with bulging bags and tired eyes. How deep my breaths, how light every step, pink sunrise over a world so different from the one I left behind. I sleep on the train, and there is no sleep as safe as the neverending A train, there is no soothing sweeter than that of being home.

We sit at the fancy restaurant later, ordering bubbles and dancing around the inevitable, until we both sit crying; our French server handles everything across his bar with a comforting steadfastness, you cannot ruffle a feather in New York that didn’t want ruffling. If you want to tell my story, it’s yours, she says, and she doesn’t know I’m already telling it. That every word I spin is a love story, and so, in the end, is hers. Sometimes we don’t see the answer for all the questions in the way, but such is life.

The street is loud outside my window, there’s a wide gap where the November air comes in with the traffic. I sleep not like I never felt fear.

I sleep like I felt fear and lived.