On Leaves

We can turn over new ones, they say, everything may begin again in spring and we are blank slates again, the future what we want it to be. I turned over in my bed and it was new, perhaps, but it felt well known. Or was it vice versa? That it was familiar, but felt brand new. I slept a heavy sleep and sometimes it’s hard to remember dream from reality, fact from fiction, the truth is my dreams know better than me anyway because I spend a fair amount of time squirreling away secrets from myself just in case everything inside me might break. Please don’t break, I ask my insides, but I forget they know me better than I do, they measure their weights and balances and the strength this life made me prove I had, do not think I fear the leaves changing. Do not think I fear their fiery colors washed across the hillsides, the sharp crunch of their sidewalk crumbles.

I have walked across the desert plains without a drop of water, I have raged through storms without a breath. When the leaves fall, I am still here. If you fear there is so much old there cannot be new, remember this: from fallen leaves grow little spires. We would not know spring, without all that came before.

Re:coup

As soon as the shift clocks out, illness sets in. Your body folds in on itself, waking you at all hours and falling asleep on a whim, everything aches in strange angles. The afternoon sun is mild and feels like spring, I walk slowly down under the bridge to the river while my muscles complain at the effort. I cannot demand purpose, or productivity, only to take steady breaths and watch the water, listen to the blue skies and let the jumble in my mind fall into place. Live a little. I remember inside myself the person who loves adventure, who loves a new view, who leaps for the sheer thrill of leaping and never longs to say I told you so. We all make moves and take chances that may not be right in the end, it doesn't mean we shouldn't have taken them.

I go home early, fall asleep again against my beetter judgment. A Saturday night plays out on Second Avenue below, but no matter. I spent this time wisely: a sick day can make even the most wretched illness subside, make the light at the other end of rock bottom look invitingly within reach.

Thursdays

(The only answer is work. You rush from checked box to checked box on your to do list and still find time to run along the river in surprising sunshine until your legs burn and your lungs laugh and we still spend the evening in a juggling act the only answer is work.
Sometimes all you need is a break
to know the answer that's been staring you in the face this whole time.)

Moments

I wake late but catch the train right on time. When it turns out I've forgotten my wallet, the cafe owner gives me my coffee for free. Returning to the subway without a ticket to my name, I find another card in a jacket pocket that swipes through with ease. I wrote a story so sad this morning that all the hurt drained from out of me, and didn't it look like I had created something new after? The Universe forces gifts and rainbows into my veins, refuses my stubborn despair, showers me with sunshine, who am I to question the Universe? Who am I to tell it it's wasting its time?

It rains today, endless cascades of cold October rains and strangers in the street like drenched cats, but do you know? Every day you are not drowing is a day you do the damn thing.

Lest You Forget

(The time may come when you'll think you've hit rock bottom.
At this point it is imperative to keep swimming,
because you have not.
Remind yourself what sunlight looks like,
and you'll find you're still seeing it.

The ocean is deep.
You may be treading water,
but the surface is still within reach.)

Gig Economy

For $5 I will write you a poem
For $5 you will pretend it is yours
For $5 I will sell you the blood in my veins
What is $5 anyway for a fun experiment?

We take our poor and make them poorer,
call it opportunity,
call it freedom,
present this one bright shining example of digging deep and
striking gold
You just have to want it,
man,
You just have to work real hard for it don't you know
this is the American
Dream.

Money bleeds from me
not in five-dollar increments but
hundreds
thousands
the only difference between me and the
homeless man downstairs is one
month's rent
stuffed under my mattress.
His name is Derek, but
it's a name that doesn't fit right.
He wears a black leather jacket,
combs his hair,
sleeps in his wheelchair,
only asks you for money if you
look him in the eye. 
He spends most of his days by this stoop,
some nights,
sometimes he's gone for weeks I don't know where
he goes. Do five dollars look
different
in his hand than mine?

Did someone promise him the
world
if only he
made a small investment 
too?

I've sold my life for beads,
as slippery as a rug
pulled from under you.

Hard Headed Woman

Monday afternoons at the bar, these days you eke gratitude out of arriving early when all is quiet and your dim corner is unfettered by the stakes of others. The bartender pours my drink as I walk in the door, she stumbles over her Spanish to a softspoken older lady at the bar, I think of travel and making one's way through conversation blindly, how each corner turned is a revelation. I've been stuck on this street corner too long. (I've stuck myself there.)

Someone died on the block this weekend; his friends gather every day, drinking Hennessy and lighting candles, holding vigils. A few pitbulls linger, lazily. I pass them at all hours and feel only love; what a strange thing it is to die. Do you know, we have such little time, why would we drag it out, why wouldn't we do all the things as soon as possible, why would we take time to think about it. A manuscript lies under my elbow, waiting its turn. Why would I let it wait any longer?

October is a blessing,
but it sure disguises itself well.