30.

A life passes. 

Much of it remains in you. 

29.

An app can only

Close itself

So many times in your face

Before you take the hint

And walk out silently. 

28.

Fall enters

like a bad

omen. 

27.

Step 43:

Learn your bartender's name. 

26.

A story unfolds

Short but

Alluring

It is not yours

25.

There is a panorama in Queens

That shows every building, 

Every street 

In every borough

Miniature size so the viewer 

Can play God 

Or Godzilla

Can find their street

Their building 

Their root in a city 

That cannot possibly

Be contained

In a building 

In Queens. 

24.

There is a light 

That hits New York in

Fall

All warm

Orange

Like fire but kind

Caressing the buildings

The nooks

The corners 

In a way that is 

Magic. 

23.

A yellow diamond
canary they say
that makes it sound light
and gay
instead of looking
dirty
like teeth in a mouth that smoked
for 40 years

Everything sparkles
Everything is exclamation points

Somehow metal and mineral
are stronger than padlocks
for life
But no one really knows how

Supposedly it's nice.

22.

Write
Despair
Rinse
Repeat

If you have nothing useful to say
Should you really be allowed the space?

21.

They sit 

Opposite each other at a bistro table so small that their knees could touch

Would touch

If they still were young

If they still loved each other

If they still had anything to say

To each other

Now it's only at each other 

Words float past the other's

Ear drum

Into the night

But mostly a meal 

In silence 

The server laughs at their jokes

But only for 20%

They leave together

But do not 

Hold hands. 

20.

Rock bottom
looks different
every time

you hit it.

19.

He sat leaning against the cool church pillar, wrong direction, the performance was at the altar. Head in is hands, was he moved by the spirit? He rushed here, his back wet with sweat, dark blue against the light of his sleeves. It dried with the Ave Marias and Kyrie Eleison. At the very top valves, a spotlight directed dances of specks of dust and flittering winged creatures. There's no clapping in the house of God. There's no flip flops, no crying children, no crinkling cough lozenge wrappers. God will not allow it. God made rules, how else will you know your life is well deserved, your future. God reminds you of suffering, how else will you know gratitude. It is easy to confuse with fear. Pray yourself away. God is not satedby your sacrifice. 

18.

It's amazing

how long a cursor can remain

blinking

on a blank page

and never magically turn into words. 

17.

If inner monologues are all you have
then they are your story

write what you know

It's just it's not up to you if anyone else finds them interesting

16.

First person narrative. 

Third person narrative. 

It has to be somebody's narrative after all you do not know how to speak if not through someone. 

What are we if not a collection of relationships? All actors on the same stage in individual plays. We couldn't afford our own sets, it's easier this way, sometimes they overlap so it's cheaper. Sit in a window and watch the drama unfold below. 

If we thought this was all real

Would we bear it?

15.

Sometimes 

and for just a moment

the great Futility of life dawns

on you 

and opens the door

to a great 

-impossibly great-

chasm of dread

that stabs your very core

You lose your breath

for just that moment

and carry on 

as though 

Nothing. 

14.

Parents think
their greatest accomplishment in life
is their children

It seems a cop out

What burden it puts on the children
to accomplish for all the generations
that came before.

13.

Find that one thing

that is yours 

and no one else's

Don't own it 

like a greedy villain 

will chain his prized possessions

but embrace it

hold it gently

like a child will hold 

a wounded bird

believing it can be saved

with love

Encourage it quietly

on your own

Shield it

Grow it

around your spine

until you know not where you end

and it begins

Then the others can do

what they want

Now it is not only yours

But it is you

and cannot fall out of your grasp. 

12.

Sunday blues tear through a body 

like chemo

Like a fiery infection

inflaming every vein

every muscle

every nerve ending

with a sensation

at once excruciatingly painful

and dulled

Like it allows you to stare

at the emptiness

of Life 

and how meaningless you are in it

It claws at your insides

but you are perfectly still

Suspended in limbo

of a life half lived

and a death 

only half escaped

11.

The first failure
sits with you always

It follows you into bright days
when all you do is right
It stands with you
Every fleeting moment you believe
you've done something right

If you just look over your shoulder
You'll see it looming
A constant reminder
of your imperfections
and
thus
of your perpetual inability
to ever make yourself
Happy.

10.

At Columbus Circle,
the rain poured in great sheets of water,
torrents down the street and
shirts see-through within a block

but in the East Village the
streets
were dry.

How is that?

9.

Sometimes
a body can be so tired
in the sauna of summer streets
that it sinks
through thin mattresses
through dusty hardwood floors
through levels of sewer and rat races

and you wonder how you'll ever lift yourself up again.

This never happened when I was younger.

8.

I spend a lot of time thinking about persona. About creating just the right facade and shell to encapsulate the words I write, to be the right backdrop against which to publish a story. This medium length hair, this average body, this passable face, they will not do. I try dramatic makeup but it smears off by end of day I get sweaty walking to work okay? I can't keep it up. This average middle class upbringing contains no visible struggle and you shouldn't have to explain scars no one can see for them to seem daring. 

I just wanted to write a story, I wanted you to read it on its own without my interference, I wanted it to speak for me. Instead I run my fingers along a thousand paperback covers on display and look at their black and white descriptions, fear the smoky biographies are worth more than the book that follows. 

Did the writer come first, or did her words? 

7.

Rules were not meant to be broken.

Rules were meant to be followed
so that when you break them
Something hurts.

Nothing new
ever came
out of comfort.

6.

Last day of summer. The air still warm, still full of sounds, a million creatures in the midst of their swan song, do they know their days are coming to an end? If they did, would they do anything differently? 

The kids along the beach pay no attention to the turning leaves, to the lifeguards packing up docks and cleaning out. School starts tomorrow. Everything changes perpetually. 

The bittersweet stings floor you every time. 

5.

In the shower sometimes
I scrub and scrub my skin
I think sometimes hoping a new person entirely will emerge
but you can't exfoliate
your soul
with drugstore creams

4.

Blue skies

Water like velvet in all directions 

Thoughts fleeting, unimportant, but you feel like 

The Answer 

Might lit in wait just beyond the next train of thought, if you could only follow it through to its conclusion

Just as happy not to

There's a secret of life 

Lying in wait there somewhere 

You just know it 

3.

Today I thought 

I put such worth in not photographing everything, but keeping a mental memory, a moment to myself within myself and but claiming it as my own. 

But while that makes me feel smug now...

When I die, that picture dies with me and will never exist again. 

2.

And then
how quickly steam
loses itself,
fizzles into silences of self doubt
words slip away into dusty corners
and your voice sits quietly again

So soon

Already lost in the woods
and it's not even dark yet.