The rest is noise

…and there is a deep stillness about my heart where your words stand like statues.

Ik wilde jou en dat ik missen zou wist ik al voor het begonnen was. Jou willen is je missen. Het was missen op het eerste gezicht.

Nothing can keep me warm. Not blankets or boys who have my number on speed dial or pizza from real pizzerias. My therapist gushes about self-love and the benefits of drinking eight glasses of water a day. Outside  there are miracles: cars are moving, people are falling in love or walking their dogs or grocery shopping for a party; a stomach bug jumps from person to person. And of course, somewhere, someone is always dying. Everywhere, a fever. And January keeps getting in the way. All anyone says about me is, ‘But her eyes.’ Grief  starts in the legs and works its way up. Trust me, my knees know when the rain is coming. It is important  that I tell myself that I am OK, but also, I mean,  'How do you quit yourself.’

To pull the rain out of someone’s back. To do it in the daylight. On a park bench. At the movies. In the middle of Times Square. To touch the drenched spine. To kiss the river in front of every taxi, every yellow car in the city. To drain it until you find gold in them hills. A new, gentle earth nestled in the tail bone. A wild, water love.