Itch

The bar looks different on a holiday Monday, the crowd filteres out, the bartender turns the lights down, but once you settle into the wooden seat, does it not feel exactly the same? The story, which you have tried so hard to avoid - for hours, for days, for years - dances under your fingertips and everything feels fine. You remember again this is the gift you give yourself: time, dreams, joy, and you think maybe you've cracked some sort of code even though you forget so often. Your roommate sends pictures from Hawaii, but you stood at the airport this weekend and thought there is nowhere else I'd rather be, so she can have it. Summer ends, September sweeps in and tries to break your heart but you're not sure there's much there left to break and maybe September can have it. I love you in ways I cannot explain and for this short moment I don't need to, let me have it. Last week I stood at the top of the Empire State Building and let my heart beat again in the magic just of being here, just of owning a few mad streets of this jumble. How easily we forget (and yet how easily it all comes back to us). I owe this little town everything, and what a gift that debt is, alone.

Because debt means we are still tied together New York. I hope I will owe you my every happiness, forever. It doesn't seem hard, to do.