When strength fails me.

The tears. For fears.
A year. A year.

I have made a pulp of me.

Consistency. Infrequently.
Consequently. No victory.

The history of mystery.

When missing me,
is cease to be.

To flee and see.
The misery of he.

And she.

I am becoming a New Yorker.
a passive mind.
a judging heart.

We are filed in to start, like playing cards on subway cars, trying not to touch one another. The empty glances that last so long. I am learning to stare at others.

The way they stare at me.

It says nothing. It means nothing.

I stare at the loud children licking their fingers, the fat lady bathed in sweat, the trashy teenagers putting on another layer of make-up to their swollen faces. The jews, the thugs, the businessmen with their silly ties, the hipsters, the mothers with strollers, and the homeless. I sit there like everyone else, listening to each bum that enters the train. every one with a different rehearsed monologue of self-pity.

I critique him. Some applaud him. Few reward him.

The better the story the better the favor.
The better the flavor, the better the labor.

Laborless thieves.

I’m learning not to care. Or to love.

And by midnite the trains that were once packed have emptied out to almost nothing. all who step on are drunk with liquor. Always judging, as if we are sober. We will all be there. One by one. Like the homeless man who never knew better. In the middle of the night, no matter where we find ourselves, we each cry help to whoever cares to listen.

And no reply. Sigh. Sigh. Sigh.

For he is healthier than i. And none can judge the time that’s passing.

i have no time. finding the spaces between these gears that shift so smoothly. switch and sway. from day to day. no chance to change. it all remains. the same. the same.

the same.

when i make it back to my room it makes me smile to deny the day that passed away. for all the clocks i have on my shelves are broken.

i live in brooklyn on a tree-lined street. the borough is called park slope and apparently there is a slope to climb somewhere, but i have yet to find it. when the sun is setting, all the windows reflect each others light onto apartment building walls. the ground rumbles as trains pass underneath me and their brakes screech loudly in the darkness of those tunnels. i climb aboard. tossed through this new york labrynth, I find interesting people to look at. making up their stories in my head.

no words are said. so many people.

but i still feel warmth here. comfort. life. the flow is exciting. it keeps me moving. one day i'll walk to the park to bask in the sun. until then i'll drink the rain that greets me every morning.

i tend a bar. this bar is on a boat. a sand bar, with sandy people. some gritty, some drifters. all lovers of the wind and sea. it's high tide. we sail past the lady liberty. she salutes us as we turn into the wind and our sails luff so we can pull them down. down. down. down ice-pour-shake-salt? wood. glass. steel. collecting paper with funny faces in plastic pitchers. all for the sake of becoming less of a jack. a jack of many hearts in a box with many springs. take up the slack with me and to better be. throw these cards into the sea, and float away.

i can smell it in my tea. the cool mornings. the brisk air flooding my nostrils. i'm sitting by myself again somewhere in america. anywhere. i watch the sun rise over the sea. thru the trees. from my car. inside this tent. i cannot miss a day. i wouldn't want to. though my feet are numb from being sationery in the cold weather, i don't mind it. it is all worth the warmth the tea brings as it descends from my mouth and down my throat. one of my favorite feelings and for some reason i want to cry. hard. heavy. warm. tai tea.

this is the second nostalgic moment i have had since i stopped moving.

the first was a week ago when i went to charleston for a friends wedding. sitting in the taxicab on my way into town i was bombarded with images of the roadside. so much of what i have seen for the past year was moving by my driver's side window at various speeds. even when that piece of glass separated me from everything else, i have never felt so close to the world.

i could hear her heart. her pulse. her cry. not that we were friends, but i appreciated all she took time to show me.