Upstate

Winding Friday night slog out of the city, it takes two hours just to get off the island and by then it is dark, the parkway shrouded in mist, it’s a horror story. We navigate the last few blocks by memory, the little town asked again to carry our dreams and our needs for escape: everyone is friendly, everything is quiet. We roast marshmallows in the fireplace and wear matching pajamas until noon, ride horse drawn carriages with jingling bells and enter the raffle with unknown rewards. So long since I last walked these streets; I was broken, then, a bowlful of empty and now how my steps are light, my limbs only here and nowhere else.

Do you hear me?

I carried the piles of my own smoking ruins, these devastated bones, I brought them through unending winters and raging storms and now I am here: I break and break but am not broken. Do you hear me?

The heart heals 
And heals
anew.