Botanic

The sun shines, flowers bloom, life returns: there is little else to say. We walk through parks I could navigate in my sleep but I'm not sleeping now, I don't ever want to sleep again, the city wakes and yawns and stretches, and how beautiful it is when it tries. I want to stop rambling, I do, but it's only, the blossoms tickle my funny bone, it's only, this smile is plastered across every side of this island and I no longer have it in me to be sorry.

If you were looking to catch the stars,
now would be a good time to hitch a ride. 

That's all I'm saying.

New

We don’t understand it, but the truth is we’ve never seen you so happy.

The sun beams over the Bowery, you make the flowers bloom, you make the city twist and turn at your will, this visit is your curated charm tour to convince them your life is exactly as you’d planned, exactly as you’d hoped, this city is the significant other you hope they’ll adore because here’s the thing, you’re staying together whether they do or not. The magnolias fatten up along the River, swell in pinks and can’t wait to explode, and isn’t that life? He writes to say all he wants is to make your life better, but it’s like he hasn’t been reading the ticker tape.

I make this life better. I bring this sunshine, I water these flowers, I carry these weights like balloons on my wrists, I am not sorry.

But when the time comes to pick these flowers, don’t for a second think I’m not filling my own windowsills with their songs. If I let myself burn to ashes, don’t think I won’t also let myself rise out of them, too.

So It Goes

April rushes in like a fool, like unkempt Ophelia who consents to her madness only for the freedom it brings. I dance along its coattails and laugh in the streets, what worries could we possibly have now, what fears, what darkness? I can recall a time when winter sat like a weight around my ankles, but I don't now know what that felt like.

Come to think of it, I can recall a lot of times, I can recall all the times, but I don't know now how they felt in my chest, don't remember now how they trembled on my skin, don't see the frequency at which I vibrated. I can only live this moment, one at a time, can only give you the version of me I am today, and you're in luck.

Today, with your purchase, I come with all these fireworks, these sparkles, these piles of sunshine free of charge.

If it's too much for you to carry, now would be a good time to consider your investment.

By Popular Demand

Hold up
They don't love you like 
I love you

Early morning, step into Gitane, quiet in the morning and still half relic with sleepy eyes but gleaming at the edges like it knows its worth. You have to remember your diamond self, she admonishes, and only surround yourself with those who do. This place was made for smoking indoors. A strange voice but familiar face steps in, fast friends you both talk a mile a minute about art and life and the beauty of growing into yourself before it's off to the next. My head swims with the reminder of all there is to do: winter convinces me all is lost and dead and withered, but spring sets my soul on fire anew. I haven't time to fuck around with useless drivel, there is art to create, and sunshine to reflect, there is a life to live and a road to travel, what are we standing around here for, are you in or nah? I'm going regardless, so now you must decide if you dare to jump. My hands are full of diamonds.

Step the fuck up.




 

Virescence

It’s here. It’s here. Tree branches all knobby with approaching buds. Me with my early morning eyes open staring at dawn, it’s a different light and you know it as it lands on your tongue but not before. Take long, soothing runs along inviting rivers, stop to look at flowers because somewhere in our hearts we are all six years old a little bit. Every night so tired but it’s only pollen in your lungs it’s only your body paused for so long it’s forgotten how the machinery works when the fuel is joy. I smile in the streets at strangers again just you try and stop me. There’s a seat at this table with my name on it and I haven’t eaten in months bring it on.

on Bond

I wake in the middle of the night, already afraid of being late. In my dreams, horrible events in deep dungeons reenact impending holocaust; what is my unconscious trying to say of bravery? I did not do well. When my alarm rings, it is still dark out, dawn crawling like a long, slow, stretch into morning, and everything is silent. Ride a reverse commute in stillness, the sun rises over Brooklyn and everything smells like coffee.

We sit in silence, committing to our arts and dreams and a moment of solitary companionship. A young girl stands on my blank page, reaching out a hand and asking for a boost. I remember again a land that built itself inside me, characters I've loved and places I thought I'd take us all when the time was right.

The time is always right. And for the first time in months, again I am too.

Fare

The words evade me, lately. Spring simmers, lets the little blossoms make their way out of the soil and into my beaming heart, fills the river promenade with all manner of revelers, everything is easier and I begin to recognize my face in the mirror. But left behind in the dusty tar of February, it seems, lies all the poetry that ran in my blood while the days were dark, lie scattered the words that gathered and built like plaque in my arteries, stiffening my every move except the one that put ink on blank pages, one after another, after another.

I forget to look for magic on the street corner, I forget to wink at the Universe to see if it winks back, somehow Lawrence Ferlinghetti lives to be a hundred and it's a miracle they forgot to cancel, what a beautiful reminder. We speak of a restaurant we both know and I remember suddenly how my heart took a beating there once that turned into cracks in its armor, that turned into earthquakes and landslides in its unmovable strength, you know it's been so long, there's so much goddamned water under this bridge we could all just as well have drowned but here we are, blinking on the shore and trying to figure out why our clothes are sopping. He says let's go to Mexico instead, and you search for flights like you had never forgotten how to run to begin with.

A new year has begun underneath your feet. You refresh the live feed for cherry blooms in Brooklyn. Wait patiently for new words to grow.