in new york,
on light
In the big apple I can’t stop making jokes about the big apple. the city that never sleeps. etc etc etc a lingering habit from my freshman year. A couple months ago L and I went to new york for a concert and he’s from my hometown so we kept going Look at us small town girls in the big city! The concert was mitski who we both used to listen to but I don’t listen to as much anymore. But I love new york I love taking the subway I love walking down the streets I love the way the light hits the buildings justtttt right.
A couple weeks after I went to new york with L I went back to see a girl and she was sweet but what was really nice was walking home the next morning, early morning, while the city woke up. I liked watching the city wake up. I don’t listen to mitski too much anymore but “in a lake” gets me every time. Not really because I’m a small town girl in a big city though I think it’s because I feel like I’m floating in a big big lake. No one else from my hometown floats in a big big lake. Where the only thing you know is your body and everything else is unsure. Walking home that morning I felt the floaty lake feeling and the light was so bright and good. It was like anything could happen.
Booked flights for the summer made my reading list and I was so excited I felt like I could burst. Big world small girl!! At the poetry reading last night I felt enraptured I’m not sure who else felt it but I did. It’s the year of Larry Levis who J introduced me to my freshman year. Think of me on the bench outside my dorm listening to J as she reads all of “Linnets” to me. And “Linnets” is long. One morning with a 12 gauge… and J’s voice which I can’t quite recall. It’s been a while, that’s for sure.
Bought sheer curtains for next year gonna make them into something more beautiful. I want to read a thousand books I’ve just got a poets heart I suppose. Going back to Canada in June and then a train to the big apple. K’s offered to let me stay at her place and I really did consider it though I’d deny it if you asked. But I’m getting my own I want a room of my own I want to be a real person. See the sunlight come in.
K and I have been talking more and I don’t mind it. Not all the time but a little more. Not all or nothing too I’ve liked meeting her in the strange kind of in-between. But I don’t want one hand stuck in the past I need a room of my own. And I have my own life tonight I want to make chickpeas and aloo parathas and banana bread and eat it with C.
Flood of light! Big splashy waves of it! The first story I ever wrote was about a jewel heist (details unnecessary). I remember one of the characters was a “puddle of moonlight” that dripped from the windowsill to the floor. The puddle of moonlight thought but only in the way moonlight does, and at one point it froze into hard ice. Then softened again. I liked thinking of light in this way. In the poem C wrote about me that is still on my wall she ends it with Let there be light let there be light. Something about it is strange, I can’t remember what though. I want to see the art installation All The Eternal Love I Have For The Pumpkins. I like the idea of eternity and I like the idea of light.
Tomorrow I am wearing a shirt I haven’t worn since high school. Is there some kind of ritual in that. Probably not. I remember that girl like it was this morning. I remember I drank more than I had ever drank before and spent too long with A and then fell asleep in D’s bed next to my friend from the volleyball team. My hair was long back then and something about it feels like I was smaller though I know I wasn’t. Most of what I remember about that night is the flimsy fabric of the shirt, gentle high school dramas. I don’t remember locating myself anywhere. I remember my friend from the volleyball team saying What’s going on with you and A so I said I love her! and she looked so taken aback and said What, really? and I said Omg no I literally met her today. So I still don’t know which time I was lying.
It’s almost summer and I only want to kiss girls with bobs because I think it’s just so chic and cool and because I like looking at someone and seeing myself. All I really want to do is yoga. I want to do a headstand and I want to do crow pose and I want to balance so perfectly and impossibly only my body is myself.
