interstates

My recent business travels through New York State this summer remind me of the road trips my dad became consumed with taking throughout my preteen years. He navigated those American freeways as if he’d been doing so forever. From the I-90 to the I-79 to the I-279, he was invincible. Traveling in my mom’s more sensible grey Toyota Corolla, he was still a warrior as he passed baby blue Buicks and singing minivans. In that instant it didn’t matter that his health was still too unsteady for him to work full time, even though it had been years since his first operation. I no longer cared about flying to exotic destinations like my friends did; we too were flying through those anonymous cities, blurred green landscapes, Dunkin Donuts standing glorious as they marked the miles we’d traveled.

hey now i'm movin'

For the past two years, I've fallen asleep to the quiet hum of the 24-hour bus that drives up and down the street outside my bedroom window and woken to Tender Green walls and spent afternoons with the warmest midday sun. These same Tender Green walls have come to hold my memories and helped me make memories and even held me when there were no memories I could even think of making. The walls in this room slope and make hanging photos and art hard. The ceiling is ugly popcorn and the floors may be hardwood but they are creaking and breaking, slowly but surely. There are dead bugs trapped in the light fixture and I'm partly too lazy but mostly too scared to clean them away. I've spent night after night sitting on that broken floor, staring into a mirror, wondering if it was a red lips sort of night, wondering who I'd meet, or if I already knew the answers to all these questions, wondering if he'd call or I'd text and wondering if I'd regret it all in the morning. This room is on the third floor of a house built at the turn of the century, and so the winters are always too cold and the summer's much too warm. But this room held my hand tight through a degree I never thought I'd finish and it held my hand even tighter when old hopes slipped away and new ones formed in their place and this room may not be perfect and even though it is time to leave it behind, I know I will forever search for the way this room erupting in late afternoon sunshine made me feel when this city was still new and everything still waited ahead.

young hearts

Young love, you were so many summers ago. Tanned and fresh faced and twenty-one, I waited at streetcorners with the hope of you floating all around. Beautiful you were as you crossed the street to greet me with a kiss and beautiful I felt, too, from the way you kissed me. Young love, you were light as a feather as you shared shared shared and listened to it all. And light as a feather was I when you lifted me into the night and said you loved me and meant it in a way you only can when you're eighteen. And my eyes were only ever wide open and bright that summer and they hardly are anymore and so sometimes I close them to still see you standing there, a bouquet of sunflowers in your hand.

today

Sometimes, like today, I really think it would be possible for me to flee this city and all its people. On most days, the idea of elsewhere always seems alluring and exciting and a little bit dangerous but never real. On most days, I have no need for elsewhere because here is where I only ever want to be. But today is not most days. And today as I sat on the streetcar coming to work, all I could think about was what would happen if I didn't get off at the same stop I get off at five days a week and instead stayed seated, riding the streetcar in giant circles around the city, never having to speak to anyone once. And then I started thinking about jumping in a car, or even a plane if I could dream big enough, and going so far away everything would be new and nobody would be familiar. I didn't know where this elsewhere would be. All I knew was that it would be better than today.

when the night meets the morning sun

Rainiest of Mays and I'm walking home in the rain, again, and the wind is so strong it pushes my umbrella inside out and my bags are so heavy I have to stop four times to shift their weight and rest my hands, all the while juggling an umbrella that won't right itself, and I walked these same streets drunk and in the fog just days ago, and everything seemed different back then because right now I'm crying and I don't know why and all I want is for the sun to come back and for it to feel like real May again and all I want is to hear real words and to be hugged at the end of it all.

you still smell like last winter

It’s last winter whenever I think of you because you were only ever last winter to me, and last winter will always be the hope of it all that followed the heartbreak of what came before. You were there in the snow and the cold and the hush to walk me home and hug me goodnight, and you were there in a tie on my birthday, and you were there, but always too far away to touch and always too nervous. And now it’s next spring and here you are again, but only for a night. And you still smell like last winter, but there is no hope of it all because you were the last heartbreak there was.

after the rain

This city smells like spring these days and this city smells the most like spring in the early evenings that follow afternoon showers. Shocked but damp and clean, I watch this city shake itself awake as the yellow cuts into the grey, and I find myself trying to do the same.