lives lived
the little brick apartment with the dirty carpet. an oversized dresser and 150 square feet, all your own. the true meaning of solitude — and how it wraps around your bones in its quietest moments. the first 40 hours at a desk; a summer of fluorescent light sun and cubicle trees. how do people survive this?
the big house downtown and 3am drinks over a mint green countertop. the sound of those old wooden stairs; knowing somebody’s always up or down. frozen pipes and the worst phone call yet. tears and front porch cigarettes; a stomach full of ash. taking off your shoes at a bar and then a claw-foot bathtub. carving a well for resilience to pool underneath your chest.
when I described our California apartment, I brought you to our salt-rimmed porch; showcased the length of our ivy. I painted the windows as portals to a waterfront paradise I’d built all my own . I didn’t tell you that even the furniture was mocking me. Or that, one night, I watched the sunset wash the ocean in pastel sequins and I fantasized about being landlocked.
somehow the hot garbage roasting in the cruel sun feels like a bonfire worth gathering around; someone asks for the soundtrack — a tired cab driver leaning on his horn — to be turned up louder. the subways have their stench back and when they flood, there are actually people to surf the waves. wouldn’t you wait for the F forever just to feel the warmth of the old woman swearing to your right?
