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...And the demons rage, still, but they keep me company and sometimes we share a drink. It's a work in progress, too... Above all, I am hopeful for the year to come. 

Because what can I hope for you, but more of the same? I hope you continue to work on your growth, on learning from your mistakes, on finding the magic. I hope something big comes of this love affair and that you gain something from it, whatever it may be. I hope if the time comes to leave this apartment that you do, but I see now, finally, that it may not. I hope, as always, that you see something new, and learn something. I hope you stay curious, and open to Adventure, and say yes. I hope you forgive yourself when you cannot. 

We tend to want the same thing year after year, eh? Be free, be happy, never stop learning or growing, see something new but return to New York... it is where the Word dances in you. I'm so glad to see what you've done of your life and so excited to see what you've yet to do. Be mad. Be free. Be alive. In whatever form that takes. 

Happy Birthday. 

Mizpah

The hydrants are open
Cool breezes
blow

We begin the day in words. Your story climbs out from its hiding place, brushes the dust from its hair, wonders if the war is over. It's been a long summer in the fallout shelter. A year ago we sat in the black Nevada desert and let the Milky Way blow us away; I struggled with the words then but all we can do is try again. When all is said and done I like to think I learned something from the mistakes I made.

We ended the day in words, too. A familiar tingle lingered in my body, warm, sweet, like I had longed for it without knowing for ages. It felt like home.

Fall lies in the margins like an imagined monster, full of claws and Darkness, but it doesn't arrive alone. There's a silence around it, a quiet space and no one to interrupt you in it. If you sit really still, and listen really closely, a world will reveal itself to you that no one else knows, that no one else sees, and all you have to do is write the story that tells itself to you to know the purpose of your feet on this earth. The monsters will always be there, but if you are very, very brave, you will hold their hand and be rewarded with the stars.

Purpose

this is my final fit 

my 

final

bellyache 

She sits in the California sunshine and tells you no truths of the world, only truths of her own, and it is exactly what you wanted to hear. It reminds you this world is strange and wondrous and we don't know anything about what is to come. Another voice comes from the far north with a glimmer of hope around the edges. You exhale. Today I sat at the edge of the ocean and watched a pod of dolphins swim back and forth along the shoreline. There may have been a message in there for me; all I saw was joy. The water was clear, and calm, and the sun browned my pale shoulders, summer lingers in my limbs and I smiled despite myself. My chest was light and I couldn't explain it, but I didn't have to. There's a certain kind of light that hits the West Village in August, it reminds you of a lifetime in its embrace, it reminds you there is sunshine in the world yet and you have only to reach for it. By the time  I walked home, a full moon lit my way. Life is strange and wondrous. I want to always be in awe of it. 

Sometimes you need a reminder. Sometimes you need to sit in the silence of a full moon until it tells you so much of the things you were too tired to hear. Life is strange. But it is, in every day, magic. 

Karma

The heart heals and heals anew, I have comfort enough for a small army, you must understand I was born alone but fill my cup by carrying yours, this is the heart I was asked to own. It breaks and breaks but is not broken.

Start at the bottom. 

Don't stay there. 

Entropy for

You try to yell answers at yourself to fill a cup already obstructed by your own noise. 

The answers will not come until you have endured the silence of not knowing it all, until you have sat with the terror of falling free and not knowing what will catch you at the bottom, there is no room for what you seek until you have let go of the things you pretend to have found in its place. 

Let go. 
Let go. 

Make room for wisdom you could not predict. 

When you are ready,
it will come. 

of Tonight

I woke up before dawn, the apartment still, the street sleeping. I crossed the avenues at red lights because who was around to stop me. First avenue lay in a haze all the way to the upper east side, crooked high rises toppling over each other, and a careful orange sun rising against the warming bricks. The river was beautiful, the morning's runners in silent agreement to not disturb the peace, even the bums sat quiet. The soles of my feet reintroduced themselves to the asphalt, but there wasn't much needed saying. Such is love.

Later, despite the sweltering heat and oppressive humidity, I walked through the Lower East Side to reacquaint myself with the city, to fill my lungs with its sticky neediness, to remember again how my name sounds on its tongue. I stared at fire escapes, appreciated signs, looked everybody in the eye and tried to remember the secret, why this place could make things right. At Delancey, I made my way east, and without thinking began scaling the endless incline that is the Williamsburg Bridge.

There's an overpass at the middle of the bridge, where you can cross from the pedestrian south side to the bike lane on the north, where you can stand over the subway trains as they rattle the old steel on their way between the boroughs. There was a breeze up there, warm but refreshing, I could feel my lungs expand beyond themselves, everything was lighter. I turned around and looked at the view: to my left, other bridges glittered in the afternoon sunlight, the river park where I run, the Statue of Liberty in the distance, everything so small, like a dollhouse. To my right, the expanse of Manhattan stacked like little LEGO bricks in varied shades of brown and gray, the Empire State Building like an old friend, the Chrysler Building like a wink and a smile. I stared at it for ages, staring and staring like filling my belly with the sight, taking deep breaths to hear the melody of the city course through my blood stream. There it is, how simple. It is not perfect, nor always sweet, it does not dole out simple happiness or paint itself in clean cut colors to appease you. But it is real, it endures, when you fall it remains steadfast, when you feel you may float out to sea it will corral you and bring you back to earth. It will see you at your lowest moments, when you most wish you could look away it will look straight at you and not leave. A year ago I sat on a park bench on the other side of the River and watched Manhattan glitter and laugh; I said I love this town more than I knew I could love anything, and I have learned I could love a lot of things since then but the same still rings true. I walked down the bridge, replenished. I still stare strangers in the eyes, but I'm not looking for an answer.

I'm trying to give it away.

Broadway Lafayette

You land late, much later than planned and the last smoggy peaches fade out of the horizon as your plane crawls on the runway. It is late, so late when you leave the terminal and the car share is ten percent off but you drag your beat up suitcase to the subway regardless. You need the city to rub up against you, for the ragged ten p.m. crowd to hold you through quiet Queens, through downtown Brooklyn, you stand sweating on the platform waiting for a connection and recognize every single strangers face as home. New York my sweet heart, America you great unfinished symphony, I am tired and scared and as lost as I've ever been and here you are, waiting on a stuffy platform under the earth, painting me in your relentless grime to look like one of your own, the tall man with the short afro making eyes at me do you think he looks at me and recognizes me as home too, how do I tell him?

I stepped off at Broadway Lafayette street around midnight, Houston street quiet on a Thursday and all the tourists tucked safely in their beds. I rolled a cigarette and watched its smoke dance along the rabbled walls of the Bowery as my suitcase and I made our way home. Home. The plants in the window have died and I think one less thing to tether you, but the truth is nothing you own comes with chains. You are light as a feather, you are free to drag that god damned suitcase to the ends of the earth, because once you let a place make a home of itself to you, you will never truly leave. I'm sorry I veer off track sometimes, my sweet heart, but no matter.

I find my way back in the end.