A variation rages, infiltrates our holiday parties and peace of mind, tears up travel tickets and throws sand in the punch bowl. New Yorkers kickstart a well-oiled machine, lining up at testing centers, mummy-wrapping entire bodies in masks, canceling everything in a five-day radius to save the Big Day, while the bar graph spikes out of its every ceiling.
There was a moment, just one or so, in the last two years when I thought New York might buckle under the pressure, might decide to stay down and not get back up again. But I think I was just tired, was just riddled with this sand in my eyes, I think I forgot, for a moment, what town this is I made my home.
You cannot break a body built by fracture, cannot drown a city made of gutters.
We will rise from this, too. We will dust ourselves off and see what remains, see who has stayed through the storm. I am not ready to call it quits, New York, do you hear me? I have seen the ground against my cheekbones, have tasted blood at the bottom of this boot, I am not done. I have wrestled with the angel and I am stained with light and I have no shame.
Another dawn arrives.
Don't you dishonor it by thinking you
cannot.
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