I never could give New York the chance it deserved.

August 29th, 2014, 8pm

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.


Elysia said thanks.

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Janet Yeh

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