You're new, I say, before considering whether that's appropriate. The bar is empty, but for a quiet writer nursing a tea in the corner and a young pair on their first date by the window. Their animated body languages compete with each other for ultimate consent, Can you tell that I like you? The bartender's name is Connor. Another regular comes in, and everything feels like home, like it used to, like there was a time before everything fell apart and we can still nestle into that feeling. We can still be who we meant to be. (Do you remember when they made toaster oven pizzas in the corner and you had to sneak in to use the bathroom when no one was watching? Sometimes we love in sickness and in health without even realizing until it's over.)
The corner bodega brings in the Christmas trees for the season, they steal an inch that becomes a football field and stretch their wires well past the green door on 6th street. When I walk out I stumble straight into the season, and there's no being mad about foliage in your eyes. My apartment is half a mile of string lights now, my nails are miles deep of dirt from digging out of the abyss, it never ends, it never ends, that is the lesson I forget in the deepest of darkness, that all is not over at the bottom, it's just you'll see it again. Reliable like transition. Lean in.
A large group of college students tumbles in, lingers in the back alcove, consdering their next steps, overjoyed at unexpected reunions. You wonder if it's okay to shush people in a bar. I've been coming here since you were in diapers. The snark seems a good sign that you are in recovery. You gather whatever rosebuds make themselves available to you at the peak of the rollercoaster, cushion the fall in the descent. You cling to words like life rafts.
You won't realize they are until it's over.
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