when they said anything can happen in new york,
i did not realize that anything included meeting the
self-empowered, cigarette-smoking, activist poet of your dreams.
the dumplings were too soft and the fried rice was too spicy that night,
but somehow it felt like what i imagine a home feels like.
something about something made me feel like
all the right notes were being played. when you left,
i spent the next three months sleepwalking. always,
there was you. you would be smiling, wrapped in a scarf,
in a café, fingers clutching coffee. (i have only seen you outside
in the summer, but somehow i imagined you this way anyways.)
you sent me Rilke, and we typed about poetry. i told you that
while he resonated with me, i did not believe his advice
to avoid love poems. finding love, i argued, was inherently
internal. you agreed with me. the next time we met,
we were back in the city. you were smiling, wrapped in a scarf,
in a café, fingers clutching coffee. it reminded me that winter
may be the best time to fall into another’s warmth. i cannot remember
what we talked about, but it must have been wonderful enough
for me to forget. the luggage i was carrying felt like a time bomb.
i saw lighters in the people around us that did not care. we spent our
last moments listening to the music of the streets. something about it
assured me that the next time, it would be here, again, forever. but
only half the notes played that night felt right. the truth is,
a series of melodies may never become a symphony. and herein lies
the most beautiful discord of us. sometimes, we let the river take us,
and all we want to know is where it leads. when i give in to my smoke,
i think of your fingers clutching coffee. when i still dream about you,
you are no longer smiling. i do not know if i am seeing you through
a looking glass. all i know is that finding love is inherently internal.
finding my love is like all the wrong notes – deafening.
~1/2017
odyssey entry 8
hallowed, hollow heart entry 2
v1