There was this boy I was in love with, the first one — the worst one — that sat in a dim cafe with me and talked about how he’d thrown his lot in with New York. He said, wait ‘til you’re coming home when the sun comes up. It infects your heart like a poisonous sick love.
My god, I must’ve looked at him like he was crazy. Damn well should’ve been committed. I wished at that moment some vengeful god of irony would strike him down for all the love that used to spread through my veins.
It was, I think, the feeling of unashamedly belonging to something that was too big to belong to you. I had familiarized myself years ago, tracing my hands along the curve of his skull before returning them back to my sides where they belonged. Plastered to his back in a too-small bed, early hours of the A.M., trembling with how little of this I could have.
I peered over the rim of my cup and thought, you don’t fuckin’ say, champ.
If I ever set foot again in New York, if I ever see him again in my life— I’ll say that I wanted him all the time, with a low-grade irritation. Like nails grown too long and no clipper in sight. Like a stone in a shoe. Like dying slowly of loneliness in a crowded metro on Tuesday.
Espressoing
A few more days
A final Hi meeting
The local neighborhood bar has a quiet time between six and nine. It is a place that specializes in coffee, beer and seasonal menus. There is just enough of each for a satisfying snack and effective buzz. After the time when the laptop lids close and before the social gatherings start -- there is a sort of twilight*. Often this time is a fugitive ground rife with creative inspiration and meditative work -- of the kind that results in personal reward.*twilight may refer to civil, nautical or astronomical variety depending on your social or terrestrial condition
A man positions his mouse on the edge of his browser window. He clicks, holds and drags the viewport first left then right. The content of a video game promo micro site responds and adapts to the available space. To the man, this is more delightful than the game itself.
A man laboriously moves his piano down three levels onto the subway platform. Classic vocals and strided chords -- he played so well I swore he was blind. Oblivious to the heat on that August stage, he was most in touch with his audience -- whom he elevated with his music.
A woman should do exactly as she pleases no matter what a man may think.
As the Dalai Lama once said, "It is a time when there is much in the window, but nothing in the room."
"No one understands me," she said. Her grandmother was silent for a minute. It seemed she was searching for an answer in the star speckled sky. "But no one understands anyone in this world, darling. We are all unique. It is what gives us a sense of wonder."