And Know the Place

You'd be lying if you said the hangover wasn't still dragging itself across your brow. A severe rain storm pulls through, knocks out powerlines and fills shoes with pools of cold April water, if any shoes were out to begin with (they mostly are not). She says he begins each day listening to his mind, as though our brains were merely transistor radios, and perhaps they are. He calls his 'Becky'. I spent a moment listening to mine, it said nothing new, of course, it said only the same truths I've sat with all these years. It spoke of a longing emptiness, of untouched skin, it spoke of quiet smiles on Sunday mornings and dreamy fires under the soles of your feet. It waxed on about poetry, about stillness, about how if you had the choice, your life wouldn't look much different and still it is a life based on aching for what is not yours. It said you never wanted to leave New York and here you are, a mouth full of money, here you are. I tell him when all this is over, I want to get in a car and just drive away. But it goes without saying that I want to come back.

There was a time when I ran, and ran, and ran. There was a time when I only opened doors if I knew I could escape through another. There was a time when I asked people to hold on to me and then set their bridges aflame when they did. I don't ask anyone to hold on anymore.

I stand firm all on my own.

(And it hurts too much when they don't.)