Big Freeze

Days pass from under my feet, like rugs swept in anger, like time isn't mine to hold, to mold, to paint like I had come to believe I could. I sit in my car waiting for the streetsweeper and watch a preschool class walk by, all bouncing steps and silly songs, and I think I left a whole life behind me in a pandemic and never stopped to say goodbye. It's been over two years since the ground fell out from under us, but as we claw our way back it's not back at all, just somewhere new. Everything broke and we cannot rebuild it, we just used some of the rubble in our new shantytown of a life. The magnolias all froze one night this week, dead, brown petals clinging to what had begun to feel like hope, I sit in my car crying because what else is left inside this shell but an ocean, what else can I do but let it out so as not to drown. New York awakens, fearful, reluctant. 

When will we find our way home?

Hope That Helps

Early morning in the East Village spring, the dog walkers are out, the sleepy children carting themselves to school, a slow sunrise stretching itself onto the streets, like a lover might reach their fingertips towards you in bed. Everything is breath held in anticipation, everything in your lungs is hope. 

I spend the afternoons staring at budding trees, I fill my phone with documentation, preparing for a winter ahead when I'll need the reminder, when I'll need to count down days until this very moment. There's work to be done, surely, but can't that be said for anything? There's writing to be done, and it seems more important, somehow. 

Seems like your soul may wither
if you forget.

How's It Going to Be

Where does all the time go? I ask the empty space around me. I pace around the larger projects, remembering the motions in the back of my spine of subconscious work and procrastination energies. This is how your best work is done. The creative swirls begin to take over, long for a day at the typewriter, for a day in fantasy, did you not spend an entire childhood in Wonderland, after all? He says write everything, and the breath leaves your lung. The National Mall in DC yells PEAK BLOOM! into your morning coffee, and for a brief moment, every other newsticker is silent. Everything is falling apart, the cherry blossoms pay it no mind. 

Everything is falling apart,
the cherry blossoms pay it no mind. 

Even a heart that looks barren
may bloom should enough sunshine reach it again.

Through

When I reach the river, the FDR is overrun by marathoners, suffering their way through thirteen miles of pavement. A man stands on the overpass, cheering them on. 

You are New Yorkers! he yells. You are tough! Don’t stop now. 

I want him to hug me. Instead, I run against the current, slow sunday steps on the pavement, a growing ache behind my tear ducts. The problem with the thaw, of course, is that all the rot you’ve hidden returns to the surface. I stop to take pictures of blushing magnolia buds preparing for the burst, of oceans of daffodils, of sprouting leaves in macro closeup. 

On the subway to Brooklyn, everything is numb except a welcome soreness in my legs. Everything else remains dead. I gather energy for the smiles, for the updates and sarcastic jokes. Table for three, please, this weight in my chest needs its own chair. Last night at dinner, she speaks of escaping war, of making it out just in time  says her brother is trying to “make it as refugees,” like it’s just another hustle  we have been Americanized beyond recognition. Was there ever another way we could’ve been immigrants here?

Nobody ever told me this was what life crises were about. I may have opted out, 

if I knew.

Don't You

It's that time of year again. Sunshine so bright that your frozen heart becomes a spring flood and short circuits your nerve endings. I sit in apathy, staring at the dirty windows, staring at the outside world and wondering my place in it. If your silence is deafening, my own is like a black hole. For a moment I thought I saw you smile, but perhaps it was just the sun reflecting in the windows. 

This season plays tricks on us. 

I always said I didn't understand how she did it that day, on that sunny, mild spring morning, when all of life was just about to return. I always wondered what you thought those last few moments, the whole world at your feet. I always wondered if I would've made it out, if you did. 

That summer, a dear friend said Something is different. You look happy.

How many second chances do you think we get?

Stats

I go to sleep too late, again, again, my body unable - unwilling - to end the days, to let go of the moments. You whisper quiet pleas into the warm night, trying to wake synapses long slumbering, trying to rouse hopefulness from it glacial grips, but all that comes out is hours of creaky steps across a piano. In my youth I made deals with the devil to forsake all things but the word and now all I have left is piles of paper with scattered stories, all I have left is a head full of poetry and I have forgotten how to tell you I get better, forgotten how to put on the veneer over the madness, in my youth I made deals with the devil and the devil does not forget, the devil always

comes to collect.

Say Something About the War

I wake in a stupor, limbs heavy and eyes confused. The little town on the river sleeps, still, March sunrise peaceful in its arrival, all birdsong and slow movements. Up too late, out too long, who do you think you are but the answer lies in the season, you couldn't help it. 

Last night, in the little theater in Woodstock, hallowed halls and an air of hippiedom in the aging crowd, a large band took the small stage and let us forget, just for a while, the evils of the world outside. A new book wrote itself in my tingling fingertips, as it always does in the creative swirls of someone else's performance. She writes I hear you want to perform some of your poetry at our festival, we'd love to have you and you wonder what spring will really be like in this brave new world. 

The roads home were dark and winding, lit only by a full moon and a feeling of wonder. A new day begins again. 

I mean that as a metaphor.

Spring Forward (Pt. 2)

The lightness, it's unbearable, how does it get you every time? We sat in Tompkins Square park this afternoon and I think my face was made of sunshine, I think my heart was made of cotton candy, I think

the long dark winter may be over and I made it out alive. 

The evening was long, and in no rush to end. Long washes of pink against the blue sky, cool breeze through the window and it's like I haven't been tired in years. I wake before dawn, that's not the rules, but I am ready to break them now. He sends pictures of cirrus clouds against a Manhattan backdrop and I have never loved anything more in my entire life. 

My darling, we made it through. You buckled, and I did not leave you. I crumbled, but you are still here. It's been a long, cold lonely winter, but we are here now. Hold on a little longer. 

Everything is going to be okay.

Whisky Sour

(When I say I'm going to make it, it's only to
convince myself, it's
only a mantra to
keep my nerves steady for one more
day
to keep
the breaths going in
and out of my
lungs until
they'll do it on their own
again
I know it gets old
to hear
believe me
In my bones
the words are
ancient.)

When I Mean Turn Out the Light

The bird chatter dives deep into my unconscious, pecking its way into my dreams, is there a sweeter way to wake than a mild breeze on your cheek, windows wide open, all of life unfurling ahead of you? She says she's packing her bags, says I'll see you soon, and it's almost, almost possible that she means it. It's been years since there was the slightest kindling resembling hope at your fingertips, you caress it now like a frail baby bird, afraid you'll scare it off. You try to get through the day's to-do list, but the seedlings vibrating in the ground send tingles up your spine, you know the whole world around you is quietly buzzing, waiting for the right moment to burst. 

Just a little longer now.

We'll be fireworks again.

Impoverish

The season flits back and forth, sunny afternoons giving way to freezing nights, every day you dress wrong. I wake in shivers or sweats. 

Each light day must - it seems - be followed by one with the weight of the universe on your shoulders. You stare into the future and ask again how one is meant to live an entire life. Just that. Do people have the answer, and I am ignorant? The flowerbeds along the river are bursting now, tickling with life and waiting for the signal. I count the serotonin in my piggybank. 

Wonder how to stretch it
decades still

and coming up
emptyhanded.

Creative Mornings

Early mornings in March, icy winds down First Avenue as I run to catch a train that refuses catching, we've forgotten the rhythm, the motion of arrival, the remnants of sake lapping the sides of my temples. We get to Brooklyn right on time, sun shining, friendly faces incredulous about the prospect of meeting in person, it's the closest to hope I've come in years. Strange premonitions lie on this day, you mourn the optimism of your previous self, but you are not down for hte count just yet. 

There is creativity left in your veins, yet, there is witty banter at tiny East Village bars, words to write, flowers to see, it's been a long cold lonely winter but you are still here. 

Start there. 

Take it wherever you can.

Emerge

I wake early, prickles of dawn rising over the brick building to the east, streets quiet but the trees rampant with jubilee. Make my way across Tompkins Square Park before my limbs are quite awake but chest heaving with manic breath, I gulp it down like I can't get enough, like I have hungered for months - and the truth, of course, is that I have. The scents return, of warming asphalt, of daffodils in slender shoots along the dog run, of New York rising. Yesterday I cried at everything, the immensity of life hinted in each little interaction, each scene, and I was not sorry. Nearly two years have past since the end of the world, and we have not yet begun to put the rubble behind us, look back to see what we've gone through. We are still clawing our way out. 

But I am beginning to see the light between the masses, my dear. I have begun to see a spring, a sliver of hope, I have seen the daffodils shoot from the earth, I have opened my windows wide now, my dear, I know it is early yet, but

All of life begins with a sliver.

Martius

I know there's no difference between yesterday and today, I hear myself say, but everything feels different. I watch the sun rise over March, feel the air return to my lungs. Did I make it out alive? Each step is too delicate, too precarious, like the rug can be pulled out from under us at any time, like winter is only one slip away. He writes to say maybe I'm being overly brave and all I can think is

this is the time
for it.