blackout

A walk down Broadway looks different now, with the dark cloud of curfew imminent, with the dark cloud of the present pressing down. A hundred riot geared alpha males line Times Square and let me out through the barricades with a ma'am I can no longer appreciate. The streetlights are lined with names of the dead, Union Square is a jumble of anger and whitecoats, the entire length of Broadway is decked in plywood, when dusk comes they shut the city down and soundtrack it with sirens. You sound restless, he says, and I didn't know it was so transparent. I come home to a quiet Friday night and I don't know how it's possible. How are we not raging, how are we not packing our figurative hand grenades and getting to work, how are we not consumed with this rage instead it burns in my split ends.

I know it feels hopeless, I know the streets are slicked with rain instead of voices, I know you wonder at your purpose. But you were born a dandelion, raised in protest, you were fed the idea that there was something worth fighting for, that this world was smaller than they would have you think. It seems bigger than ever now, it seems everything is distant but your neighborhood has never been closer, your city has never been tighter and if you stand for nothing then what will you fall for?

The world is only falling apart if you let it.