Chasing

Snow, it falls; i called
a stranger i used to know,
and it was just bars on tuesdays,
lounge spaces, and dirty plush cushions for lovers,
all empty in december, but for the soft, raging music
that drifts in the air and finds no home,

and myself,
with a drink, in a sturdy glass,
drunk, but not piu troppo, too much.

Some people called, looking 
for me. They want 
me to be happy, yes, but please, 
don't be piu troppo, which they don't say,
and there is a scent 
of acrid hunger, the stone-pit pangs of wolves in winter.

Who is this stranger who walks in rain, and leaves us 
to our devices? Are you sad? I think
this is making you sad and angry, and I am worried,
so i say, yes, yes i am, i am sad and angry, and i am

lying, on a couch, in a dim bar, 
in the dark of the city,
and promise, to come home 
when i am done. So they go. And they sleep.

And a glass of something golden or silver, 
sits safe on my chest,
and i am alone 
with the ceiling and the walls, and the space 

of the solitary bar, feeling something 
secret, and raw, & most certainly piu troppo.

gummy bears et al, is the post dying diet.

the new art gallery opened, and all these beautiful strangers are crowded with each other, wandering, drinking mildly expensive wine, some sipping, because the art is so damn good and intricate. 

rugs. rugs, ornate and on walls, accented by the room, & a wall of tightly framed photos of foreign walks untouched by development. sepia lends depth, but so does the lone cat who owns an establishment more than any simian who makes his way in its silence. 

i am never sure, but maybe i never have to be. 
there's a sweet contentment to wandering evenings on quiet avenues. streets so firm beneath me as i am lost yet safe, the air is warm. there are lights in all the buildings and i am only a girl who meanders beneath them. windows and lamps, and though the night is here, there is a music that kisses me, first soft and surface, and i am tentative. 
then it kisses me deep, and i don't know what to say, so i don't, so it washes into me, right into where i've been waiting.

on a tuesday, months later

I do my best. I really do.

I was about to up and leave the cafe, but a song came on.

It was lovely, though I thought it was going to be prettier than it was.

There's a man, --a guy, really, (because what is a man or a woman these days?) -- who wants to slide over and put his arm around this gorgeous stranger sitting at the table next to his.

People fall in love, all the time. Little moments. The day is young.

I think I'd like to live in the financial district.  I'd get up, go work for a few hours-- and then idle in a cafe and write. Watch the light change over fire-escapes.

I know it gets lonely and quiet at night here, but I think I'd like it.  I don't mind the solitude.

So many buildings / so many souls behind glass.

I wonder how many people wander by their windows, at the hours between 10 & sleep, and think about all the other people in the city.  

I bet they don't. They have no reason to.  
There's never a reason to be alone, unless you want to be.  There's never a reason to be lonely, unless you choose to be. The solitary life is fair enough. 

I think all young people are caught between alone and not, and lost & not-- but the direction is good. We are all going along our paths, to whatever our end destinations are.

We all look for signs & directions. Options everywhere. Such safe answers.
Risk & chance, and less and less to touch, and less and less to hurt. But what is there to love? 
I want to. I really do.

Choose your own page.  2, 4, 16, 25, or shake up the rules and jump to the middle of the book, or the last page. Happiness or death, or redirection to some other page, but it's your own journey.

That's not a good enough reason to read a book.  I want something I can mull on and love.

I want a well-written book, and well, that takes a kind of certainty.

I'm not in love, but I'm also not not-in-love.  What do you call that feeling -- that's not discontent, nor dissatisfied?

It must be what a mote feels, little dust particle in sunlight.

If it's a feeling, the word is not in German, nor in French, or any old world tongue-- but in English, --and perhaps, the strictly American, New York City kind.

We're all little atoms anyway, muddled up in the same high charge/ low charge medium.

Most importantly though, is the universe infinite, or finite?