and No Surprises

The river looks different from this shore, gentle, blue, whispering secrets it knows but not you, not yet. You make a note to find out. Later, the air is warm but not imposing, a familiar wind from the west but entirely unknown, you lose your direction but do not feel lost. It's late and you are anything but tired.

Maybe this is how it starts.

Re:fuge

Why, yes, he said, I know of a cure for everything: salt water.

Salt water? I asked him.

Yes, he said, in one way or the other. Sweat, or tears, or the salt sea.

the Sweetness

The bad news is, your teeth are perfect, your dentist laughs as he sends you on your way. It seems a cruel joke, and you ask the Fates what gives, but they have no answers. It's June and I'm still wearing sweaters.

A young man, hat in hand, stepped up to me in the laundromat today as I was matching socks, asking about a job. Maybe I should have pretended the authority was mine to hire him. I cried later, over fitted sheets, but the fault was not his; it happens. My mother calls to ask for advice, I am all advice lately, my heart grows and grows but it bleeds me dry, what gives.

Life is not easy, but it is beautiful in all its flawed hopefulness and blissful ignorance. It is not over until it is over, and I have a few years in me yet. I cried at the laundromat but I smiled at the river, be patient and tough,

some day this pain will be useful to you.

Catch Me If You Can

I wear out my limbs, one by one to silence the voices, it's a comfort that it works. Summer sings as the sun sets over Brooklyn, the breeze is light in the trees, the gift is not lost on you. We sat on the roof above the 18th floor and looked at the city as it spread out around us, so many years later and it still takes my breath away every time I let it. I traced the streets, pointing out buildings we knew, parks and street corners, how the stories of our past paint maps on top of the grid. Love beams and grows in my chest at every turn. I have begun looking at apartment listings again; it soothes me. Back at home, we sit on the couch gossiping through another movie night, the choices of what you have to gain and what to lose have never been clearer.

Choose your moves with care. It is not the same as with fear.

Textbook

You wake freezing, cold rain rushing in through an open window and so many alarms missed. The entire icy season seems sprung out of your suffering heart; you are a sitcom cliché despite yourself. Your roommates drag you out to watch silly old musicals, how you adore their kindnesses. You forget to eat again, the heart breaks and breaks and lives by breaking, the little candle burns and burns unperturbed.

Your typewriter sits steady on the windowsill, ready for what storms may come. But the words are missing, lately, and you don't know how to get them back.

Note to Self

Do not look at things
that still live
and imagine them
tombstones,
relics in the museum of your
past

It's okay to hold 
this candle still

When it blows out, 
you will know

Hopeless Wanderer

Two oceans and a continent away, static connections and a mild lag before once known lines come into relief. See your own face contort into familiar reactions, hear conversations take the usual turns, shake your head at how nothing changes with the years. Call me later, I'll show you sunrise on the ocean, he says, and you think that the sea could heal any wound within you. I'd send you a ticket, but it always was impossible to get you out of New York.

You hang up and call your dentist.

Remember that you can buy your own goddamn tickets, and maybe it's about time you did.