an open letter to new york

SOOOOO drafty. draft like. a draft

dear new york

me and you
we got some things in common
sometimes I can be a little
frustrating
but it’s worth it in the end

like you at 4am when the F train is
running… like every 45 minutes
and only from West 4th
and I’ve clearly already been awake
too long
but I remember, on the long walk
from Alphabet City that my favorite
ice cream is in this little all night
grocer in the village
and I am content to enjoy the summer
air, my ice cream
and the thought of what’s on the other
end of that 25 minute train ride.

I can’t stay mad at you
So I want to write this down before
I forget

New York
you stole my first love
two years before I thought I’d have
to say goodbye

and I went there without him
just to see what you were all about
and you played the best friend
keep your enemies closer fashionable

you wooed me with audrey tatou
at the Angelika
vegan pastries, used book stores,
crates of records for a dollar saturday
morning in chelsea

i got what he saw in you
painted you on when I got
back to him
and he laughed at my 20 year old
pretentious
like he didn’t love the way you
showed it to him in himself

maybe you were more subtle

you got him anyway
and still pretended to be my friend
gave us every other weekend
taught my car your highways
like they were her pipes
my veins

you stole another
for sport
but he keeps his distance
feels more comfortable
knowing you’re there
but prefers blank stare
connecticut highways
to your bright necklace streets

says he’s coming home soon
and by home he means here

and by the way he says it
I know we won’t ever make it
me and Boston
we’re rooming together right now
but if he loves her
he’ll never love me

I’m not provincial or regal
I don’t go to bed at 12:30
and the only thing we got in
common is these winding streets
that punctuate before you thought
you’d understand what I was talking about

and as you steal another crop of
possibilities from me
I’m starting to think about joining you
because I know I can’t beat you
and we always said maybe someday
and someday’s looking to be a lot
like next year

but we’ve got so much in common
and I know how that goes sometimes
how common makes clash harder
so I don’t know how long we’ll be able
to live together
and yes, you can cry on my shoulder
I know he’s leaving you for
“go west young man” dreams

so maybe that’s why you’re adding more
to your collection
so yes, I woke up this morning
not mad at you anymore
willing to compromise
trying to remember 4 summers past
and not 3
how we learned to love you together
me not knowing you’d steal him
away

so I’m resigned to “you win”
but maybe we can work out some
sort of joint custody arrangement
every other weekend and holidays

i just want him on Sundays.

open book (spoilers ahead)

I have been told that I am one of the “less subtle people” that someone has known. That general consensus kind of prevails in most of my dealings. I try it for endearing, but who knows. Truth is, I never feel more weighted down then when I have secrets, so I kind of get my therapy all over the place. Anyway… so, usually I don’t go into too much depth here, and it lacks context for people to understand unless they already know. I dance around things and don’t come right out and say what I mean. Oh, not tonight.

I am sad. I don’t like to admit it. It makes me feel foolish and vulnerable and out of control and none of those things are things that I enjoy. I have one basic principle when it comes to relationships. I don’t make a lot of demands on friends or lovers or those that identify as somewhere in between. All I ask is that you not make a fool of me. I feel a little foolish right now. I also am very tired and in an emotionally vulnerable time of the month (if you know what I mean) and so I may be a little pre-disposed to this emotionally out of controlness (i.e. I may cry a litle). I don’t like giving anyone that much credit, and I’m pretty sure it’s been about 3 years since I cried about a boy. And yes, I think that particular anniversary and the parraellels it holds to this current situation are evidently making me more emotional than i should be (read: the crying, which has not happened yet, but i wouldn’t be surprised). But also I think the combination of realizing that (a) someone you care about a lot (even if you kind of worked really hard on not caring about them and then they acted like your boyfriend in public a couple times and then you let your guard back down and said “what the hell” but i digress) is not going to be in your life anymore and that (b) they have someone else in their life that they care about is kind of like a double whammy. the kind of double whammy that makes you question whole chunks of the last 6 months of your life. i hate moments that make me feel so emotionally vulnerable that I just want to be a song. songs don’t have to pick up the pieces and go to work pretending like nothing happened.

Bottom line. I hate May. May and New York. We got patterns and they ain’t good. May and New York and Me. We’re in a fight.

shark

I haven’t written anything in a while, but tried to force myself yesterday. Here was the result:

you used to have teeth
and a swagger to match
didn’t meet my eyes from across
a crowded room because you
didn’t need to look to know that
I was tearing your clothes off with
my eyes

you didn’t even know what color they were
you were hard like a diamond
and rough like where I found you
and I didn’t even think about the eight
year old that lost his hands to provide me
with the glow of your studded charm

and yes you were every cliche I could contrive-
you could charm the pants off of an amputee with
low self-confidence in a crowded public place

yeah, you were that good

until you got real good
not good like vodka burning down throats
on sneaking out of windows nights
when 17 feels like invincible and
mouths against mouths feels like
ice cream that only melts
on your tongue

no, you got to be the kind of good
parents approved of and
that diamond stopped looking like
metaphor-

I thought you knew better
but it was like you never heard me speak
just a siren song only you could hear

I never cast a spell but you got struck
by some kind of cupid sick
and I never thought I could get so tired
of sleeping next to someone
I used to want to talk to in the morning

used to want to dance with all night
even though you were always too cool
to dance
I think I could get you to take salsa with
me now

won’t flinch when I step on your toes
won’t budge when I push instead of kiss
won’t yell when I am impossibly unreasonable
and hopelessly unapolegetic

you used to have teeth
circled around me like a shark
knowing I was easy prey
but willing to stage a sneak attack
for sport

I never thought you’d be the type
to lay down roots
sharks don’t even have feet
and I liked you better in ocean
before you needed me
to breathe

Missing in too much Action

Yeah, much like Jess, I’ve been spending a lot of time being a person and not a poet lately. I never thought that the two had to be mutually exclusive, and don’t know that I even believe that now, but I have been so inundated with life the last couple of weeks that I have had a really hard time articulating it into words. First off, it is soooo summer outside. Man, am I unprepared for dressing professionally and for heat. I don’t remember how I did this last year, except that my commute was in an air conditioned car and not on the T.

Yesterday, I helped to produce a one hour televised live to tape (isnt that a funny phrase) broadcast on young people and the media. The more I do, the more I realize that I am in a place where I expect a lot of myself and my staff. The amount of things that we accomplish in this office in a one week time span would blow some people’s mind, but we don’t even slow down enough all of the time to high five. For me, that’s because yes, I have brought in about 250,000 dollars in grants this year, yes, I have succesfully held about 4 youth oriented events, serving about 100 young people, yes, I have from the ground up created our first ongoing youth program (with AMAZING support and work from Colleen, Marc, Miguel, and the MWT), but I can’t get the little things done. I have a staff of teens who thinks that their job is a second priority to everything else. As a result, I have a Media Action Series curriculum that is essentially collecting dust, because we can’t get organizations to schedule these 8 weeks with us on a consistent basis. Free programming people! grrr… but I digress

Ok, essentially, work is amazingly wonderfully awesome. I am good at my job, I like it, and it pays well enough for me to maintain my lifestyle. I can’t complain there. I really can’t complain anywhere. My roommate and I are getting along really well… I need to clean my room and the kitchen, but I will hopefully have some time for that on Monday. My car is fixed, registered and legal. There are little stresses here and there, but when it comes right down to it, I can feed myself, clothe myself, sleep in a pretty nice apartment, and spend mondays on the common with a pretty sun hat… yep, I got it pretty good. Granted, I’m sleeping in that bed alone… but honestly, that has not been phasing me lately. I like a couple of different people, one in particular who has, yes, been around a while, and yes, will not be around much longer, but it’s cool. We have a good time together, and that’s that. I’m 23… and I have decided that this summer I am having a good time. Yes, I will be working like it’s my job, but I plan to enjoy myself, meet ineteresting people, work on my thesis, write, read, love, and live.

kaya

I met the most beautiful little girl the other day
and for a moment I was sorry that you were
never born
remembered the night I admitted that you lived
briefly in my body…
after too many drinks and no more words
to console the best friend
vomiting from morning after medicine
and coulda woulda shouldas

and at that moment I realized the words weren’t
grasping at straws but
another life that bled out of me with yours.
I would have named you Kaya
I don’t know what I would have told
my father
or yours
I didn’t like him very much
but he made me feel special
asked me
how I was so sexy and…
“was it good for you?”
without an ounce of the irony I reasoned
was the only reason I kept him around

don’t get me wrong
your Daddy was smart and cute and funny…
sometimes nerdy
he probably still is
I wouldn’t know
we don’t know one another anymore
didn’t even speak the year after when
we lived blocks away from each other
and when I think about the life
that bled out of me with you, he’s not in it.

The only way I could ever think of bringing
you into this world was the same way
I lived in it everyday
but that would have never been good enough
for you
imagine me
nursing you in the back of a collegiate classroom
reading your a story between latte steaming
How could I have written a thesis with a
crying baby in the library?
Would your juiceboxes have ever made it to
Take Your Daughters to Work Day
if I couldn’t stop cradling you long enough
to walk across that stage on Graduation Day?

but little Kaya I missed you
looking into that gorgeous baby’s solemn eyes
I saw the life that bled out of me with you in
first steps and first words and
you sleeping on my chest until I
was certain that you wouldn’t stop breathing
in the middle of the night

and I know it was for the best that I woke up
that morning
before I even knew your were sleeping inside me
with that life torn out of me
with the slim percentages of babies that
are actually born

i know when you join the right side
of that percentage
you will have a better life than WIC checks
and daycares I can’t be sure you’ll be safe at
You’ll be a blessing and not a
tomorrow I never had

I know this

but Kaya, baby girl, when I looked into those
little eyes and I saw the yesterday that didn’t happen
it didn’t seem so bad.