Who You Are

It creeps through me, unlocking secret passageways and doors long closed. It trickles through rusty veins and cold eyelids. A person too long forgotten, a laughter too rarely heard.

We sit on the couch, tipping random Rieslings and catching up the passing months since summer was young and the water was warm, and we built a friendship over bare feet and other bottles still. When we part ways at the train, our shoes are cold with rain but my heart is warm with reminders. A million post-its fly through my head with things that are wrong in life, but when he asked how things were, I said good, and at some point I realized I meant it. The list of people to adore grows long; it pins me to the city when I am not looking.

There is a force in my step again, I remember it from before; there is a smile in my eyes. It climbs up my spine, a winding course, I know what this is. This is happy, and the person forgotten, was me.

About Last Night

Sunday afternoon and the light lasts an hour but the coffee many more. As people traded, one after another, on the tables around us, we sorted through the definitions of our beings. Tell me about yourself. But there is no answer, to such a non-question. Choose your colors, paint your picture, this is the moment when your slate is clean. Your answers rehearsed, you've been practicing your social resume for months, they sound decent enough. You applaud yourself your ability to smile that genuine smile, blissfully ignorant of what lies behind it. Cold hands grow warm along the body of another, things begin that were not, before.

I don't know, I said later, on the couch with the roommate. I don't know, she replied. I don't know is not no. I don't know is not nothing.

Perhaps that, by default, makes it something.

M.R.I.

The morning after is always cruel in its daylight and in how clearly the colors arrange. You try to tie together the yarn that unraveled, salvage what escaped your yielding skin and sew it back into a person again. You cannot quite remember words, or reasons, or how the night even got so long; the edge of a winter storm whips at your feet as you stumble to work, but on the ground lies only cold water.

By the time I arrive at the hospital for a brain research study, the streets are dark again, yet my mind no sounder. But as I lie in the scanner tunnel, unable to move, or speak, or hear, only focusing on staying still and letting thoughts stream past unnoticed, a sense of calm descends through my veins.

I remember what you said. I heard what you didn't. I tie them in, when I put myself back together. And my brain looks just fine, in pictures.

Of Our Lives

My phone died before I'd even started the trek home, it was a long and silent walk, the bars closing. I focused on keeping feet straight and thoughts straighter and no worries tomorrow will be another day, the deadline will circle your drain as it does.

It was a perfect bar, it was. Nestled into its bureaucratic walls, only a small sign revealed its safe space of old men and rows of whisky. The bartender shook his head disapprovingly of my company; I loved him in an instant.

Secret stories make their way through my innards. How quickly the cab pulls over when you call it; it's just like New York and do you remember? I stumble over cobblestone streets numbly, reach my door, count down the minutes to my alarm.

How different these eyes will align
come morning.

But I Can't Change Time

Sounds of winter struck the pipe outside my window this morning: sleet dripping heavily to the ground, undecisively. When the movie was over, we ran through uptown Christmas-lit streets to catch the bus before the cold entered our hearts. What pride struck my senses as the curtains closed, and I remembered what it is like to surround oneself with creativity. Everyday they sit at desks around me, as though that were all there was to them, and suddenly credits roll with their names and I am in awe. How light a heart inspired.

Back on the south island, we squeezed in to the back of the crowded, little bar, all warm soft wood and ancient dusty details along the walls. Ancient dusty details on the bar stools, at that, with thick beards and tobacco packets in a row. I felt at home.

You have to give it a shot, you know. You can't make a home when you have been here mere months, she said, and was right, of course. I must sit on that wooden bench, drink my beer, and let Stockholm sink into my every limb.

How new the friendship and already how dear. I anxiously await the dust to settle. Become a regular. I have to give it a shot.

For the Long Run

I dreamed last night
that my family
were all running a marathon
together
and it was long
and hard
and we stopped along the way,
I needed to change my shoes.

And when I stepped out from that room
-what a long break I took-
how much faster my feet
we ran
my steps so light,
the hills green and
sun shining.

There was a fork
you could choose
the long and flat road
or the shorter
harder
hilly terrain
I said
wouldn't it be more fun
to take that one.

I woke up
with the delicious feeling
of adventure
and joy
and lightness of being
in my limbs

The symbolism
seems too obvious
but there must be
something to it.

St Eriksplan

Two nights exiting at that same subway station, in a whole other part of town. Both nights too tired, too weary, too sick, and both nights returning home with a smile. So it goes, when you leave the reins for a while to rest in someone else's hands. How easy to take old friends' softness for granted, the ease of a Saturday night in unseen places when the eyes so familiar. How much unknown dance floors remind you of the corners you try so hard to avoid, and you wake up with that headache again.

There is much City left to discover, much Life left to live. November behind and adventure ahead. The chapters are all new, we forget that the pages turn but they do. Grab a pen. There's work to be done.