Lush

Greyhound buses still leave out of port authority bus terminal. Dirty scuffed port authority where the homeless and decrepit have earned their belonging more than you have. Bus sneaks out of the midtown tunnel, dark, dark, dark and then suddenly: New Jersey. Twisted turnpikes and bits and baubles of a skyline appear, reappear between the greenery. In a car below us, a couple drives with New York plates, his right hand on her thigh. No more, no less. At a turn, my chest is stabbed with the fear of ever having to leave this city, of watching it slip away behind me, powerless to stop my departure, of seeing it so sweetly like this behind me and knowing that is all. Now, instead, safe in the knowledge that distance makes the heart grow fonder, safe in the knowledge of return tickets and love the kind that lasts even when you do not cling to it, now I can look at the open road and think of all the stories I’ll bring when I return.