Habit

You are back at the writing bar, a constant in a sea of chaos. The bar is empty, January Mondays when people retreat into white weeks and winter silences. You fight through the apathy, beat your way to the quiet, warm space in the corner. There is too much at stake, always too much at stake, all of life is a stake and it pushes itself through your chest. There is poetry in the pain, you repeat to yourself like a mantra, like a conviction that needs to carry you through when nothing else could. You have to find reasons to everything or you'll never get out of bed, you think. Mending generations of heartache will pull the life right out of you; you wonder who has to drown for someone else to survive until the rescue boats arrive. 

You miss a time when you could run for miles and miles until all of the sad dripped out of you.

At least the bar is comforting, at least the delayed twilight of 5 pm is a pleasant surprise, at least when you walk in the door, the bartender pulls a glass and knows already what you'll ask of him. New York returns to you in minute minutes, in hair-triggers, just one more moment and you've built a whole life. I bet my heart on you years ago, New York, and even when we trip, even when we stumble, we find our way back to center. I have never regretted the miles and miles I poured into your streets.

Have never regretted the life we built
around the stake in our hearts.