Domino

Summer sun, the grass in the park is already turning prickly with drought and heat, the hipsters tumble out of their apartments in droves, fill Bedford Avenue with their attempts at cool. We meet on the south lawn, sit silent for eight minutes and forty-six seconds, wonder at how long it takes to die, how quickly everything can change. Turn to strangers and talk about our insufficiencies. Uptown, they topple statues, there is so much work to do, how can we ever think a white picket fence worth more than this? I'm looking at apartment listings again, I know it happens when my heart itches but it's different this time, it's really different this time. Do you hear me, I regret none of this.

On my way home, I stopped along the river to watch the sun set behind the island across the East River. Dark clouds moved in over the Statue of Liberty, sparking lightning at the edges but making no sound. Manhattan beckoned like a song in twilight, saying you can always come home, isn't it time you came home? and I had no argument left in me. I walked across the bridge as it got dark, watched the city sparkle, Delancey street is a dark back alley nowadays but I have yet to be afraid of this city, have yet to feel its ground shake beneath me. I'm looking at apartment listings again because I'm betting it all on you, New York. My heart itches but my soul knows exactly what it's doing and how could I possibly regret that?

Just because you are broken now
doesn't mean you always will be
and maybe that's enough, for now.