#nycwriting

Someone spilled rock and sand on the city street below. I didn’t see them do it, I can only guess how it happened. The clamor to rush away as the traffic light announced the alternation of stopping and going. A truck’s tailgate pushed too hard by the weight of the load upon acceleration. A trail of dust and sand tumbled to the asphalt in an effort to escape, only to be trampled by thousands of cars over the next few hours. Each time someone drives over the rocky debris a hiss escapes from tire and sand skittering in opposite directions while somehow maintaining a glistening track on the dark street. It sounds like someone thinks it’s going to snow, like preparation for the ice and cold February is known for. It feels like spring though. The air is warmer and the sun lingers longer, diminishing the length of the darkness that haunts us from one season to the next. I find myself drifting off, dreaming of a deep, clear sky speckled with dots, sifting the light from distant planets and stars through the dark, warm air. In my mind I remember a summer night where the stray sparks from a fire mingled with the stars. Everything felt so possible, so near. Then wheel meets dust and I’m back in my apartment. Sitting up in bed, the only night sky I can muster lives on a backlit screen and the line of sand in the road is one I cannot cross nor can I understand. 

it’s funny to me, increasingly so, how those of us who make our way through the city each day have learned to pluck our hearts from our sleeves and stow them deep within ourselves. We lock them away, there’s no room for them on the crowded stairs down to the depths of the subway tunnels. There’s no room for them as we cautiously monitor the proximity of the person walking behind us up a dark street. It seems the idea that to love and lose is better than not to have loved at all was pushed aside as we decluttered our way into living more compact lives in crevices sold to us monthly. In my pursuit to brush any vulnerability aside, I think my heart has become more and more fragile. When I kept it on my sleeve, it would brush up against things, face the cold morning air, and so it grew a thicker skin. But now, sick in bed, peering out the window or tethered to my phone, I feel so small and so weak. I cry at almost nothing, a dream I had spoils my day and I wonder if the girl who traded her strength to live in a shoebox in the sky would even recognize me now as I write this to assuage my shame and maybe even attempt to console myself. 

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Don’t bum your burn protection! In turn favors the prepared, savors the flared; Flavor Flav times squared and visually paired, w/ a price kit a bit of the night shit: now each worry pays rent faithfully

“Because sometimes I just need to be held and hear that I am amazing just the way I am. I need it at times, maybe I just feel like this once in a while. I feel like tearing up and hugging you, whoever you may be. Just promise me no matter how bad it gets or I get, don't leave. I promise I won't. Not this time. I love you and I always will, I promise.”

I would pour that precious sun down my throat. And curbside, forfeit property 

Humor and humongous Are giants of flesh Among us? Do we Really exert between status Updates all the life in a belly button Schools get around to ordering They made the teachers purchase From their own pockets In the most unfair way Keep shoveling Dirty, all paths Lead to abominable snow.

I am an event planner from another galaxy. A warm location. Photogenic cabins and only people you choose around you. I declare no ice, no sharp edges, no salt lining up on leather, full mascara undo misery.