Remembering moonlight over NYC, for the average dame

She was fitfully enjoying a stale Marb on the fire escape out of stress, in nothing but sweatpants and a frown, but the way my mind remembers her, she was wearing a ballgown and diamonds. The rain had just stopped, so the fire escape glistened with a thousand fireflies, as the sun set over our garbage ally kingdom. The smoke and fog swirled around her like she'd commanded the breeze to decorate her existence. Her hair was wet and tired up but a thousand times to this one, I'd tell you her red locks flowed down her back like gossamer. God, what would I give to breathe back in that careless moment and let the cancer lead me to oblivion.

How to remember black and white photographs.

These days when I wake up from a night I forgot I just wish that I could replay it over and over in different locations. I want beaches and warm sand. Bonfires and woods, lakeside. I always want to be near water. Roman candles. Cheap beer. Hand packed spliffs. Remember when we used to pretend to smoke the actual grass beneath us? Remember when I was afraid of everything? Remember when I refused to lose control, and all I needed was a breather? Remember when I egged your bedroom window because you wouldn't answer my calls? And that bitch you were dating called me a slut? And you threw her against a table in the woodshop? And Coach K had to pull you apart and the whole class had to go back to making gum ball machines in silence and pretend that hadn't just happened? Because no one, Coach K included, could believe you just did that? Remember that temper that caused you to tell me you were putting a knife to your arms because I couldn't be your ragdoll anymore? Remember how I put you in therapy? Remember how we stopped speaking? Why do I get so nostalgic thinking about you when I know what a wreck you had become, and all the shit you put me through? How did we sort of become friends again? How come we fell apart again? Where are you and who makes your heart swell these days? Because it's not me. And that's fine. I'm entirely ok with that, officially. But do you remember who we were? Have you used that to make who you are now better? Was I a worthwhile stepping stone? Do you sit around a bonfire thinking about me? Did I hurt you too bad to feel nostalgic? [How can my heart think I am actually the one who hurt you? Why do my emotions betray the memories I know were true, and I was the one getting hurt all the time?] Am I a blank space in those memories? An empty blanket, an unopened beer, someone who may or may not have been there, it makes no difference to you?
I hope you think of me. I hope you only remember me in a sweet frame. I only remember you that way, and I know for sure I shouldn't. I guess I'll never learn.

I Wear The Road Like Diamonds. (late 2013)

I wear the road like diamonds
A decadent strand borrowed from some other
Time where people were happy
People were extravagant
People created. It was needed.
People fixed what needed to be
And poured themselves with concrete into the
Beautiful details
The art of healing a torn up land.
I wear them in mourning, in honor
In remembrance.
She's a foot away in the passenger seat.
{Might as well be a thousand miles away}
A broken spirit hollow shell
Of a woman I adored
Adore
Will forever adore.
It's late.
The hum of the car the beat of the bass
A never ending lullaby to her aching heart
Broken in ways I cannot repair.
Crying sapphire that she will never let me see
The pride of a tarnished jewel.
The hum of the car the beat of the bass
Sends her off into fitful rest
Rest I cannot give. Rest I cannot provide.
I am helpless, so I leave the repairs in the
Hands of the median
The blinker ahead of us
The curve of the highway
The hum of the car the beat of the bass.
The shine of headlights streaming into the windshield
The last thing before the last thing.
... I wear the road like diamonds.

These are the things I see on the train, and type in my phone. Part 3 (2013)

Sitting here in the homeless seats of an unsettlingly silent a train, I feel my body beginning to betray me. Even with the hot fresh coffee slowly coursing through my veins, I feel my muscles humming, vibrating within my skin, with anticipation of every blink. The feeling of weightlessness. The sensation of ease when a blink lingers shut a moment, a millisecond, a wing-flutter too long. The way your feet feel once they've finally woken back up; they've stopped tingling but the feeling was right there, just a breath ago.
I intentionally left the first car I sat in, knowing full well it's safer to be in a car with three people than just one; faceless, hunching for warmth, shadowed at the other end. This one contains soft snores, scuffles and sniffles, as everyone follows suit into the awkwardly popular car.
The conductor enters, alert, to the crackle of his walkie talkie. Asks me how I'm doing. I'm clean, wearing tweed and faux fur, with a travel mug versus your generic Pleasure To Serve You paper cup of life blood. I don't belong in these seats, but it's nice to know he noticed me even for a minute. I have a witness.
There's peace of mind in having a witness at 3:31am on a Sunday.

The vampires drunks and insomniacs alike (in this city) flood the streets and trains as previously shirtless bartenders, wide awake for their lingering clientele, don hoodies, turn on harsh reality from overhead the bar, and count their Washingtons.

The conductor has a genuine voice. He announces all the local stops like a vintage Westerns narrator over a static radio line. Dykeman is next, stand clear of the closing doors. He directs, details and assures us our patience is appreciated as we hold in station after station, like a bad stop animation. Rats crowd the Express track, laughing at our tortoise pace downtown: mocking our confines to an agenda outside these tunnels.

These are the things I see on the train, and type in my phone. Part 2 (2013)

Know when I feel safest in my city? 430am. The bums are all asleep, and easily avoidable among the empty train cars. The drunks have since stumbled home around closing time a half hour ago; the puddles left behind are the only tell they were recently in my streets. Like twisted trails of bread crumbs, a piss streak here, a Jameson or seven, round two, over there. The only MTA worker besides my conductor (who's running 4 minutes behind already, clearly setting everyone's pace for the day) is sitting in my car. He's a far safer beacon than any beat cop; overworked underpaid and mind on his next cup of coffee.
The train hums. It's the same hum morning noon and night, only now it's the corroborative symphony to my low headphones, with no scuffle of Wallstreet shoes, no squelching children, no slang attitude-laden Spanish from one underpaid to another. This is my safe space.
The street laid out ahead of me is glistening but it hasn't rained. The street cleaner is two Aves away. The downtown drunks have made a clean escape by my arrival.
The runners are stretching, lacing up the trainers, gobbling a protein bar, all in the comfort of their studios. No one sweatily pushes past me. No one exhales down my neck like I'm the tourist blocking their self righteous cityscape trek. No one heckles my outfit. I am in all black, doing my best impression of a shadow against the avenues within the dawn. No one blesses me, wishing me a "good day, mami." No one begs for change, they've all found refuge in the air conditioned train cars at this god awful hour. The breeze is the coldest it will be all day; it carried a distinct smell of gasoline, warm trash, and yesterday's bacon egg and cheese being scraped and burned off the food cart grills, their massive percolators a welcome buzz among the patchy traffic.

The first person I care to speak to is already pouring my coffee: large, yes; vanilla cream, yes; no sugar, I'm 'already too sweet.' The perfect morning conversation.  The only man that doesn't make my skin crawl when he compliments me. I do, after all, pay him for his conversation skills and dark roast.

These are the things I see on the train, and type in my phone. Part 1 (3/12/14)

The New York City train system is the Great Equalizer - the way it unbiasedly puts every class together, forces them to stand together and breathe the same air. There's no physical class boundaries or borders; the volume at which a group speaks to one another or the odor, nearly palatable, coming off of a singluar body is all that divides passengers. These borders ebb and flow and do not possess the character to judge and dismiss some passengers from its fold and others to engulf. Everyone is subjected, everyone must take notice, no one is spared based on who they are wearing, or who they are begging. The music blaring from one set of headphones, the numbed sipping out of a paper cup of coffee, the sweep of a turning book page and the click of acrylic nails on a glass screen all stick out against the aggressive constant steel hum of the train tracks, and the unintelligable operator announcements between the long stretch between 125th and 59th. 

He holds a Timex and a blackberry and an iPod, legs crossed; subtle branded socks peek from the well tailored cuff at his ankle. He's next to a man with shaved side dreadlocks who is in deep conversation with himself, informing the entire car to his inability to hold and erection when staying at his mother's house. Neither man notices the other. The only unjaded attention span on the train is the wide eyed child, whose mother is desperately trying to get to take a seat, and pretend she doesn't hear.  There's no off button. There's no door to close with intention. There's only the open space between the faces, none of which look towards one another, all absorbed in their chosen distractions. 

SHOWTIME.

Oh, fuck me.