Noted

She writes you late at night, so late that it's become summer daylight in her Arctic corner of the world, there's a manic magic to it that your heart knows and misses. I just don't need to sleep, she says as she stumbles home from her studio. You speak of the world and she sends you poetry, a conversation that began years ago and never really ended, only changed color a little as you both learned to surf the agony of being alive. If they make me choose between love and art, I must choose art, she says, her chest like lead. I wish I didn't have to choose. You think of your deals with the devil and wonder if you're trying to renegotiate the terms of service. A stray thought dances off to cabins in the wilderness, to midnight sun and Pacific solitude, to a life in motion and discovery and the Word constantly at your fingertips. You remember the colors of your dreams and wonder how you got so comfortable in convention.

But I sat today with the Word at my side, I rolled in its fallen leaves and nurtured its hesitating sprouts, I danced in a story that spoke to me as though it weren't my own and it made me forget the time on my clock, the hunger in my belly, the sorrow on my brow. I sat today with the Word as my companion and remembered a lifetime in love with its steady comfort, a lifetime in awe of its magic. I have wrestled with the angel and I am stained with light and I have no shame. How many hours have passed, I cannot say, it does not matter. A story builds and weaves through my fevered limbs, my tooth hurts, the mouse eats the peanut butter off the traps and leaves unscathed, a rent check sweeps through to clean out my bank account, I have wrestled with the angel and I am stained with light 
and 
I 
have 
no 
shame.

I resign the lease. Succumb to the deal I've made.

Heathcliff

Sort through your messy closet, find old cobwebs that no longer suit you, relics of other lives to be saved just in case but you haven't lived your life just in case for years, why start now. The garbage bag grows as you shed layers you didn't know you were storing inside yourself: how light you feel. The soundtrack is sunshine. Yes it was cold out there, today, but summer grows in your chest from the inside and will not be stopped. It builds and builds until it finally spills over and beams out of every strand of your unruly hair.

I laughed today like I couldn't remember pain, it comes like a gift and I know to be grateful for it. My teeth still hurt, the apartment is a maze of mousetraps, but my closet is clean and summer swims with adventures ahead. I laughed today like I couldn't remember pain and soon I will laugh like I can't forget that life is ours for the taking.

It is here now.

Watch me.

Letters

A weekend comes and goes in boroughs. The temperature drops 30 degrees, your walk of shame spends an entire day in shivers and borrowed clothes. The factory is half abandoned; you uncover vast empty floors with Manhattan views and dress yourselves with ear plugs, listening to the sound of rushing blood behind your temples. It makes you dizzy and peaceful all at once, everything is giggles. The early hours are like the first bites of a craved breakfast: no consequence, no bitter after taste, the whole beautiful meal ahead of you. The last minutes, on the other hand, are cold and leave you nauseous, trembling on a subway platform in Queens and rolling your eyes that you could be surprised again at the bleeding gashes in your chest.

A train came, at last, rocked me gently as it dipped into the underworld and brought me back to the island, my mainland. The wind was still cold, but these streets are familiar. The grid does not overwhelm me, does not catch me by surprise, the grid knows slow and steady and reliable in ways I still struggle to master.

I go to the boroughs to get punched in the gut. I fear if I don't bleed enough, Manhattan won't hold me as sweetly as it does when I return.

Destination

There's a picture of their kids, all lined up in someone's backyard, everyone smiling - it's summer - and all I can think of is how there's a special kind of grass in the desert suburbia where I grew up; when I look at the picture I can feel it between my toes. I hear late night sprinklers, feel the apricot sun on my skin, I remember just how it felt to live a life in that space and it sits in my heart without remorse. Sometimes I wonder if everyone thinks so much about their memories.

The typewriter creaked today when I stroked it. It didn't resist, but the prose was not easy work, all missteps and smudges, words stumbling upon each other and childish turns of phrase. The point is, it still moved when I touched it. The point is, there are still words left to write, stories left to tell that I haven't discovered yet, there is work left to be done but the point is if you think it's worth doing, the treasures that lie on the other side
are
all
yours.

Grace

The mouse comes out from his hiding place in my closet. Scuttles along the baseboards, looking for a way out. I watch him from my desk as he sniffs the closed door, considers the rolled up yoga mat. When he hears me, he runs straight back into the closet and hides behind the a/c unit, a silent behemoth still biding its time. You wish you were more appalled. It's a beautiful, sunny morning, my running shoes are already tied, my inbox rattles with tickets to all manner of adventure, the best drugs in life are these. The ghosts yell and scream with all their might but when you stop to truly look at them, aren't they pitiful? I am not afraid of you, little monsters. It just took me a while to remember.

Mercy

Summer arrives. Throngs of residents and tourists stream out of tall buildings and populate the flower beds, the smell of air conditioning permeates lobbies and offices. I leave work in the early afternoon with nothing ahead but freedom, it’s a beautiful gift and I carry it gently. Board a ferry to Staten Island and watch the city twinkle from afar; it looks like a mirage. Twelve years I have known this little plot of land, this maze of streets, this jungle of dreams; twelve years I have known it and I have never loved it more than I do now. There were honeymoons and overs, there was heartbreak and hesitation but honey we always came back to one another, I always believed the magic would still be there.

As the ferry returned to Battery Park, past the statue that tells you you are home, swerving around the edge of Brooklyn and depositing us back on land where I can breathe, I felt a peace in my chest that I knew would carry me through. You have to work at love.

But it helps to believe in magic.

Lullaby

I run. I cannot get myself to stop. It pulls at me in every still moment, it lures me with promises of salvation. In a river of fair-weather joggers I lose myself, let go. My demons join, of course, they shout encouragement and scorn like a pack of 1980's horror b-movie monsters; it's endearing. I carry on long conversations with all manner of ghosts. Sometimes they respond, sometimes they get bored with my desperation and vanish as I get sidetracked by the lights on the bridge at sundown. The demons tire eventually, too. They call it a night and leave me to a strange silence and sore legs. I buy myself peace with pain. It's a trope.

The truth is, May runs through me like a whirlwind, like a manic pixie dream girl I long for all winter. Maybe it's the excruciating silence but I remember again who I am, what I came for. I remember the way I look people in the eye when my back is straight, I remember how near adventure is when you reach for it. I remember how my body is a messy tangle of magic and if I open this lid it'll burst out, you better watch out it's contagious. I knew this was real even when it seemed impossible, I'm not sure you heard me, but no matter.

I'll be shouting it from the rooftops, shortly.