Returns

It’s that the scents have returned. As though you were stumbling blindly in a world without color, trying to feign a life when none existed in your vacuum, and suddenly they turned the lights back on. The smoke of grilled meats float in through the window, your morning walks a discovery of florals, identifying passersby in the street based on their most human essence. You think maybe you are alive again. 

I take my headphones off along the river. Hear the steps of runners, the williamsburg ferries, the birdsong, the FDR waking. Make notes on my phone about new stories as they appear to me, parked on a park bench and open to the whims if the universe again. Always keep a notebook in your back pocket, you hear, and for the first time in a long time, 

You remember why.