This Breath

The bus weaves through Hell's Kitchen, crosses Broadway on the upper west and rolls slowly through Friday night in Harlem, all piles of people lingering in the streets: it is summer. The caravan crosses Malcolm X boulevard and your gaze follows its straight and narrow line through the park down to the softly lilting skyscrapers of midtown. Cross the bridge and look back: Manhattan overwhelms you with its beauty, with its untold treasures. You miss it already; an entire life across its avenues do not seem like enough time. 

The sturdy Greyhound ship continues slowly out of city limits. You embark on untold adventures, hundreds of miles of unknown highway stretch ahead of you, America unfolds at your feet. 

Your best days are perpetually yet to come. 

Cleavage, Cleavage, Cleavage

(Because when it's summer

in the city

and you're

long gone from

this city I

start to miss you,

sometimes)

The weather turns sweltering overnight. I run along the water and rivers of sweat make their way down the nape of my neck, the small of my back; I try to focus on how this will work out the kink in my joints, the ache in my chest, as my feet pound the blood across my temples. It works. Not for long. 

He calls from across the waters and you had forgotten how simple the lilt of his tongue, how welcoming the ease of conversation. You do not paint any futures across his forehead, but then, you never paint any futures at all. Your father calls and says Do you really believe you'll leave a year from now like you said, and the idea seems as ludicrous as any mad concoction your poor twisted heart could imagine. I didn't think so, he responds. 

In your heart (of hearts)

You have everything that matters. 

In your heart,

you are whole. 

Twine

Walk east on 12th street, pass a hundred different worlds across the avenues, with reiki energies sinking into the heels of your feet. It's too soon to go home, your breaths are still deep in your chest and you need the quiet streets to settle your beating heart.

Perhaps it is May's doing, this incessant smile on your lips, this spring in your step. Perhaps it's the way the East Village buzzes incessantly against your ear drum, and you want to see every last inch of it, touch every surface and hear every last mad sound of its streets. Your love for New York resurfaces, your love for the Word and you find yourself home on a Saturday night caressing old writings like former lovers you never entirely forgot after all. He calls from the chilly autumn evening while you lie sweating in Central Park, and you no longer remember what it is to miss someone, no longer remember what it feels like to miss a piece, because you miss nothing.

You will walk up and down these streets
(until they fill you)
and they will make you whole.

Holiday

You learn new things about the neighborhood: the East Village is as empty as the West come holiday weekends. You walk down Second Avenue, quieter than it ever has been since you arrived, and you remember again how you love the feeling of being alone in the city, having it all to yourself like a jealous girlfriend and savoring every moment in its gaze.

There's something to be said for being happy to your very core. You imagine it's unreasonable to expect it every damn day. 

But New York makes it pretty hard to believe it. 

To Serve

His girlfriend greets me with a familiar hug in the doorway; I cannot remember if we've met before. His eyes dart across the restaurant, all evening he is elsewhere but when we part ways he holds my hands a little longer than necessary. She reminds me of me, but better. It makes me happy.

There was a moment last night, when the drinks made my limbs so heavy and the pillow so soft, when the overwhelming vacuum at the core of my being reared its ugly monster of a head and with me nowhere to turn to look away. In one lapping wave, it knocked the breath right out of me and it took me so long to recover, as I tumbled down the rabbit hole into the cloying tar that resides there.

What is the point in letting myself roll through the sludge, letting my fingers get pruny with worthlessness and despair as the ghosts of days past devour the scraps of foundations I have built for myself? You look at me like the answer should be obvious, but I have no words left when I open my mouth.

It's just muted screams,
disguised as ignorant bliss.

I Was Prepared

A storm passes over the island. You run across Broadway to meet him in the rain, oh how Saturdays lie sad in New York City and you want to do away with all the cluttering people in your way. Your phone buzzes with unknown feelings and you cannot make sense of the turmoil in your chest, along your skin.

But he puts it so simply into words; you look him eagerly (earnestly) in the eyes and realize that from this giant mad man come the answers for which you've been desperately scrambling for weeks. Perhaps it's the warm thunder outside, perhaps it's the miles that lie between, no matter. The only thing you can do is try. Whatever will be, will be.

Your only job
is to be there, when it does.

Render

(If you wait long enough, 
stay up late enough, 
even the East Village grows quiet, 
with only the rushing sounds
of effortless traffic
along the avenues
to keep you company
-to occupy your mind-
and eventually you will hear
the voice inside your head
you've so successfully drowned out
It had not abandoned you
It was waiting patiently
until you 
were ready
to listen.)