On Stoops

I walked past our old apartment today. Past the terrace where we smoked so many cigarettes and dreamed our New York dreams. Past the street corner where the Chrysler building would glow. Past the hardware store; I still have the keys. A man was waiting to get buzzed in at our door, do you remember that door? We had our drinks and made our way to Koreatown. We missed the doorway, it was such a seedy place, but promises are promises and a few floors up lay the air conditioned karaoke room that I'd spent years avoiding. We parted in the street a few hours later, and I don't know that I'll ever see you again. I don't know what my life would look like without you.

The walk home was long; the flatiron lay shrouded in darkness and the Memorial Weekend streets were so quiet. A voice came down the line and suddenly the village was not nearly far away. I sat on the steps and pretended my alarm was not about to ring so soon. A train awaits, a trip awaits, my room is a chaos of bags that can never contain all of New York and I can't get myself to feel tired.

I wish you were here. I wish I was never leaving. I said a lot of things, it was the sake, forgive me, forget this, a million years ago I lived on 28th and Lex and I had no idea my life would turn out this way.

But then, isn't that the best bit? I dreamed New York would return. And I did.

I close my eyes real hard, I hope for sweet dreams anew.

Count Down

Cobblestoned corner on W 12th and W 4th, the wine bottle cold but the skin sticky hot. Summer in New York, a million cars parked at every intersection, clawing their ways out to greener pastures, to brand new tanlines. The dogs happily teetered around the tables, the night had an air of reckless abandon and summery revelry. Words of departure came and went; they were too surreal to believe.

My room changes shape. Piles come and go, rearrange themselves on shelves according to priorities. Fifty pounds plus carry-on. Choose your life. A week from now, who will you be? What words will remind you, what fabrics express you, does it matter at all in the end? Pack for adventure, pack for the leap. You will not know where you land, until you are brushing the dust off your skin.

You do not stop to look around. You do stop to mourn your loss. There is only next week, now.

There is only the leap.

Last Time

journal excerpt,
January 1, 2007

I have, now, left New York City...

I can feel in my heart that my body already misses it. Goddammit.

It rained as I packed up and cleaned out. The Empire State was nowhere to be seen in the fog, the City was tired and dreary. Then we got in the shuttle and the windows were covered, so I couldn't see the City as it zoomed passed. I felt disoriented and lost, in this city that was mine, knowing these were the last minutes I would see it and wanting to savor them but unable... It was as though it was no longer there. At least not for me. And I doubted I had ever really been there, at all.

But then, we took off, and through my airplane window I saw the City, so small suddenly, the Empire thin and fragile but red and green nonetheless. I saw the buildings glitter and the darkness that would be Central Park...

If what I wanted was closure, I've been left unsatisfied.
What I have now is an already overwhelming longing and a determination to make it back. Hold out, for me, New York. I'll see you soon again.

and Mirrors

I came home last night, and my shirt smelled of nostalgia. We sat in that dark lounge smoking countless cigarettes in that way which is no longer legal in any other place. Out in the open and free from the rules and restraints of the last few years. How different things seem; you can't go back again.

Tonight the sun set over a boat in the Hudson and we drank our Coronas with a wedge of lime and a slice of summer in the making, my shoulders sprouting freckles as the skyline lit up. How it returns, how it always returns and here we are. A year older, a year more rooted, more entrenched, more helplessly in love and what happens now? I wish we lived here, she whispered as we walked down Bleecker, but we reminded her that she already had. When I turned back onto Morton, the air was still so warm, so soft, unmoving. I frantically make plans for tomorrow. So many faces to imprint, one last time, in my mind. In my mind, this will be you, forever.

This apathy, this surreal, heartless, cold that surrounds me, it will break my fall. Without these scars around my heart, I'd never make it out of here alive.

Steam

For a minute, the rain relented. I stepped off the stoop and instantly, a tiny bead of sweat started rolling down the small of my back. New York summer was back. Men in suits looked uncomfortable, college girls walked around Washington Square in their sheerest nothings. MacDougal smelled of concrete and cigarette smoke, of cold, conditioned air blasting out of doorways and that sweltering thickness of the humid outdoors. I walked down Minetta Lane and an old man stood in the quiet alley smoking pot. The sweet smell lingered; the air did not move.

How beautiful this city is, all in itself. With its crabby inhabitants, its tireless impatience, its garbaged streets and exhaustive air. Where standout characters blend in and a million dreams are dreamed, or crushed, or realized every day.

I do not need to visit those unseen corners, experience that thing I've talked about for years but never made it to. New York City is my home. It will be with me always. And I will be back.

Good love, is too good to let go.

14th and 8th

Twice today I climbed the stairs at the 14th street station. At six in the morning, my eyes so heavy, my bags so light, I took the long way home to remind myself I was back in New York. West 4th street lay quiet, so quiet, it smelled of summer blooms and humidity, and only the strange creatures were out. Tonight I walked down Hudson, past the White Horse, with such loud music in my ears and I felt my heart beat quickly with gratitude over the life I have.

How does it feel to be leaving New York, she asked, but I had no answer. The question has been miles from my mind for so long now, this past week an eternity in length and my silly woes set in perspective against the frailty of life. But now that I am here, now that the minutes remaining are so few, I panic. This, my city, my home, and soon it is no more. Or, soon I am no more in it.

I walked under the Williamsburg Bridge and the world was bathed in that odd glow that comes when the sky is thick with clouds and the City's lights bounce off its ceiling. This is home, I thought, and took the long way back to the Village.

We only have this one life. It is unbearably short and wickedly unreliable.

I am glad, somewhere in it, there was you.

Penance

Tonight my thought was elsewhere, forgive me. Tonight as you lay writhing in your strange bed in your strange home where you do not belong, in this new world where the words in your mind do not reach your lips, I was busy with pleasant conversation. I allowed myself to wander elsewhere, to feel his skin against my fingertips and to shiver in anticipation of the next move.

It seems cruel that our lives will continue, will resume, will remain pretty much as normal, when your hell is still so very near.

I am sorry.