Re:Volution

Slowly, I remember how to smile, how to breathe in a rhythm and to care about brushing my teeth again. I put away the dirty clothes off the floor. Manage to look people in the eye, although how few eyes we have at our disposal now. We turn to the arts, but how cruel to lean on a shoulder which cannot count on us in return. Everybody bleeds. 

I walked uptown yesterday, to look at the spectacle. How quiet the neighborhood, a soft sweep of traffic punctuated by birdsong and nothing else. The grass in Bryant Park has never been so green, the majesty of Grand Central Station never so empty. I walked around the ice rink at Rockefeller Center and lost my breath in the expanse of space. I always fantasized the city to be mine and only mine, and what a grotesque way to have your dreams come true. But a gift is still a gift, if you'll have it. New York whispered to me at every empty crossing, winked in cherry blossoms along Park Avenue, and showed off its buildings like I'd never really seen them before, like we'd never been this naked in front of each other, until today.

Here I am, I whispered to the city in the middle of 5th Avenue, void of even a single yellow cab for blocks. Stripped of every defense I've built up, reduced to my very core, and will you still have me? Fourteen years ago, I stepped onto this island, and I didn't know what it was to love then, but I do now. For better and for worse, is a gift,

if you'll let it.