Ache

The forecast calls for rain unending, hour after our of thick cloud covers on the radar and you are probably better off huddled in a corner for the remainder of the day. A man rides by on a bicycle across the street, one cigarette in his mouth and another in his hand. You think of paper pulp and how ridiculous New York can be in its beauty. You've never stopped loving it, and perhaps there is something to be said for loyalty. The rain picks up. 

Last night, at the regular bar shrouded in orange lights, she says she's trying to move them all back home. Hoping the motherland will offer solace, solutions, solvency. But if we go, we won't be able to come back, she says, and you wonder if it's worth giving up this madness for anything. The day offers a brief pause in your despair, and you're a hundred pounds lighter without it. There's something in life you have yet to figure out, and in the parting clouds you remember a desire to do it. To turn stones. To find one gift you did not expect. To marvel. 

The rain picks up. But so do you. One day at a time. Eventually we get where we are going.