Trains to New York City

He loved the city...

He loved the city the way you loved a lover...an intimate.  The way you were always a visitor but never home.  Each trip revealed something new, something unique...the way a sunset reflected off of a particular window of a particular building...new colors, new scents.  But there were constants...the same things that continuously brought him joy in his return.

The city was young enough to be beautiful, but old enough to carry it.  And wear it well.

A lot of the city was unknown to him...she would not reveal.  But what she did was lovely...and many times tender.  A lot of times though she remained quiet, and leaving him guessing.  And when he departed as he always did he wasn't ever sure if she would be found watching him disappear.

Even if time and space inserted itself between them his love for the city never waned.  And stepping out from the steps of Penn Station he felt that familiar energy, the familiar heartbeat of this place he so strongly wanted to call home...but he would never arrive at that.  It wasn't to be.  It couldn't be.  She kept her dark-eyed heart in the long concrete miles and soaring tops of buildings.

But while there she would provide, and she would reflect.  And she would allow him to enter this little kingdom of Gotham and for awhile make him feel like he possessed a part of her.

He loved the city the way you loved a lover...a confidant.  To anticipate the return...but never know quite when it would happen.  Just knowing that it would and that he would feel the exact same thing that he always felt.  However long ago it had been.

Meds

There was always this one move, this one gesture...it was normally when they were reacquainted after a bit of time and the nearness was still a burden...like strangers (but not strangers) who slowly circled each other, slight feints, movements...testing comments and dialogue...slowly perhaps growing comfortable...an iron slowly warming once plugged in.  She would reach out to grab him...sometimes after a bit of a joke, or a sentence that was playful but had potential...perhaps damaging or cutting but meant with no harm.  She would reach out to him and in that extension he knew that the bits of ice that had formed between them had melted, and she was warming to him.  He loved that moment when her arm extended and she clasped him, even if for just a second.

Because she was his prescription.

His medicine.  The dull pain that was usually an absence that throbbed into full blown ache when he dared to let her weigh on his mind with the slight weight of her physical memory against him.

He could not take her daily...she wouldn't allow it.  Rather, dispensed like a cautious drug it was taken in snippets...hours...day parts that were allowed.  While there was never any chance of over-indulging she never let it become the risk.

She portioned off her parts to him like a recovering addict slowly weans off the one thing he cannot live without.

And he would never know when she would provide...never knew when she might appear.  Never knew when she might allow.  The addiction was just as much the mystery as it was the attainment.

She kept herself from him...as much as she kept herself for him.

All he knew was this...that the absence was a blade, and in its continuous portion it drew itself against him in a lengthy cut that was to a bone...a cold, lingering cut of flesh that flayed and exposed and felt like a toothache in his soul.  But small certain bits...little tiny portions of her that she gave to him in words and in writings completely mended...suturing his suffering and pouring warm oils in his wounds and binding them in cloth that she once wore.

He could smell her in the bindings...the sweet scent.  It invaded him and reminded him of her.

It was enough for him to fall asleep...quietly coddled in her sharing, her parts of her that mended him with her memory, her close glance against him, the sweet science of her fixing him and his bitter broken bits...

Only to awaken and find himself completely splintered and deconstructed...adrift and away from her and broken with her absence.

To start the day again, away from her.

Again.

Halfway

We are halfway through the year with the shortest day signaling the start of the cold portion of Winter.

The nights are no longer as long as they've been...each day, hour by hour they will brighten slightly.  Imperceptibly.

What the sky doesn't reveal is they will remain so glaringly long across the distance between us.  Across the hours and time and moments...across roads and traffic.  Across state lines, blurred lines.

I hate the start of winter, but candidly it has been winter for some time now...

Although every once in awhile, when we dart into each other, on that rare occasion, it crams an entire summer's day into the heat and smashes the distance into an inch that I so rapidly want to close quietly, in a brief and elegant silence...that lasts like the longest day of the year.

Pieces of you stuck in me

It was cold...that he remembered.  The kind of cold that was blanketing...it sought out your ears, your neck...your hands.  It blew unkindly into him...it was grimacing.

But as he walked past the Christmas tree lot he slowed...the lure of the lights, the scent of the pines.  The hawkers extolling the virtues of their trees, the spirit of the piped-in music...it felt like a holiday, like a time that was worth slowing down and tucking away minutes into your pocket so you could relax, could realize...it was that...a realization.

He dialed her up as he stood freezing, gazing at the trees pristine in their condition, knowing they only had weeks to live.

He got her voicemail.  Hey...I'm just standing here in the biggest city of the world...and they have these amazing christmas trees...amazing probably because there are so very few trees in this city so it's this dichotomy...and anyways, I just wanted to tell you---
and then the call stopped, the recording space cut out.  He looked at his phone.

Fuck.

He stood amongst the greens and the lights and the dark sky above with the million lights of the city.  He stood beneath a smeared full moon that everybody could see and appreciate...but he harbored the secret that he was one of the so very few that knew her, and had seen her, and could appreciate her for the very things that were unique and worth studying.

He glanced down and noticed a needle fallen on the ground, a green sliver from a tree in the lot.  He picked it up, this sparse remnant of the full blown tree and put it in his palm.  Its tiny point pricked him, bit into his skin like teeth, incisors, sharp and pointy.

He looked at his phone again.  Thought about calling.

Like the piece of the tree that had fallen, like the tiny needle in his hand, he merely wanted to be part of her...actually he took that back.  He wanted to be a bigger part of her...he actually wanted to tell her that he wanted to be the city to her, the moon smeared across the sky...the first thing she saw at night and the first thing she saw in the morning.  That he wanted to be in her view, in her eyesight.  He wanted to bring her packages and favors...that he would wrap her in warmth like a coat from a closet, and unwrap her in an evening when she came home...that he would draw baths for her and hold the towel when she emerged.

She was the evening, the darkened beauty against a city full of lights, the curve of the earth when the sun first touched...she was the crisp stark features of night against the cold, the weight of a hand that was held in a snowstorm...the way you get out of the weather...indoors and safe.  He wanted her to be there, wanted her to share there...to be clothed and close.  Bulky clothes and layers but ultimately a mouth that was warm and inviting.  Allowing.  He held up the small needle and realized she had been inside him all this time, like this tiny part, piercing and bleeding...feeling alive and loving, warming, touching.  He didn't call her back, but he knew what he would say the next time she was next to him.

Cowlings (But at Night...Not Day)

Taking 460 north out of Wakefield and up towards Waverly there are a few spots where one might stop and dine.  In the best of broad daylights it would be super simple to see these locations, easily perched besides the road, identified with big signs and a beckoning sense of something local.

The snow had drawn deep enough to crust the highway, and the sleet put a nice slick glaze on it so that the car seemed to glide along on skis, with each bobble threatening to careen him off the road.  He edged slowly, trying to see and more importantly stay in his lane.  But nobody was out.  Nobody was stupid enough to be out.  

dreamers and daredevils he murmured, the cold of the wet in his hair dissipating, replaced by a new fear...of running adrift and being stuck and being stuck would lead to being dead.  

He wondered why he had even departed, why he wouldn't debate her to stay...stay in a separate room, stay on a separate floor...but he knew that if she was left to that choice that there might be the chance that she might come find him...and right now she wasn't in a searching mood.  She was rather in a mood to stay alone.  Stay away.

And so that was why he found himself driving in hazard conditions, idiotic and insane, up a highway that was so poorly lit he sometimes was lost in the horizon of white and had to crawl along, looking for any markers swept wet by the sleet so that he could orient his angle.  It was in these crawling that he saw some pale yellow lights...and at first he thought they might be a car or maybe even cars...but cars had white lights.  As he moved forward he realized it was a building...and in closing the distance it became a restaurant.  

no fucking way.

He kept on, the yellow against the sleet sluicing in front of him, until he was alongside of it.  There were no cars outside in the lot...but he saw somebody in there.  So he pulled in.

There are a ton of tales about good samaritans, peaceful folks who lend a hand, extend a gesture...people that help lift you up and brush you off and send you on your way.  This is not about those people.  This was about something dark.  About something that doesn't give you peace but only extends your agony.  He wished he had known that before pulling into the lot.

He sat for a moment with the car turned off, the gravel beat of sleet against the car, and a lone flurry mixed in.  It was dead on 32 degrees, per the car outside temperature gauge now blackened without the engine being on but just before he turned the key he checked.  

The yellow lights spilled gingerly out.  He opened the door, pelted by the wet, and strode to the door. 

It was open.

He stood in the entrance, looking around.  Completely empty, save for the man behind the counter who regarded him curiously.  He looked like he might have been just about to wrap up...head out, flip the sign and go home.  But there were no other cars in the lot.

Do you have liquor?

The man behind the counter grinned and set down his hand towel.  He gestured towards one of the seats with his hand and nodded.  Yes sir...we do.

So with that he strode towards the counter, dripping a few drops as he walked and sat in one of the sturdy chairs bolted to the floor.  Victor said the man behind the counter, introducing himself.  He offered his hand and shook it...it was warm.

What kind of bourbon do you have....Victor?

Victor frowned for just a second, doing mental inventory.  Then nodded....well we have the usuals...Makers, Knob...

I'll have a Knob...neat...double.

Done.

Victor disappeared into the swinging doors and he could hear him rummaging.  He had picked Knob as it had been a piece of their puzzle...an introduction to her.  It was synonymous.  

Victor emerged, holding the door with one hand...I'm sorry, I thought we had it.  Looks like we're out. I do have Makers...and I'll give you a double for the price of a single.

He shook his head slightly...the night was bespoke of things that were no longer...

That'll do.

Victor closed the door and the rummaging started again.

He finished his third and there was no letting up outside.  The sleet wailed against the glass and the roof...he could see his car melting into some sort of ice object and he officially was stopping to care.  The storm outside would not or could not compare to what ice was inside of him.  Victor had left him to his own devices, cleaning and straightening so he stared at his dying phone and dying ice in his glass and felt warm finally.  Despite the ice.

Victor? he said, turning to the man across the room.

Yes sir?

Why are you still open?

Sir?

Why. Are. You. Still. Open? I mean it's shitting the world outside...nobody is coming.  Why not kick me out?

Victor approached, toweling off a glass.  Well...it's because I live out back...I can walk home.  So I stay...in case...you know, people drop in.

People drop in?  It's a fucking hurricane in winter outside.

You came in.

He picked up his glass.  He regarded it and took a sip.  Amen, brother.  I did come in.  In the nick of time too.

Well sir then there you go.  I'm still open for you in the nick of time.

He set down his glass.  He realized that he was in no shape to be driving...no way under pristine conditions and with the weather outside he may as well go stumble into a snowbank.

Victor?

Again, from across the room....Yes sir?

Victor, I'm not going to be able to go out...I'm not going to be able to call a cab or an Uber and I'm not going to be able to walk home or to a hotel.  So...Victor...Vic...do you have any suggestions?

The place was quiet...like a church on a Monday...but without all the prayers save the one he was saying to maybe fix the ruptured and fractured parts of him that were definitely not healing but were feeling a little better with the brown in his glass.

Sir...Victor was weighing his answer...looking around and knowing the options were what one might call exceptionally limited.

Sir you could stay here...not in the chair...but you know...in a booth? He was looking with his eyes as he spoke, regarding the rows against the window.

Here?  

Yes.  Here...inside.  I could turn out the lights and you could stay here.

A slight pause as one places odds and the teeter-totter leans in one direction...Well fine...but fuck me Victor, this ain't some hotel.  So you may as well pour me one on the house.  He held up his glass...and Victor took it and ambled back behind the doors.

In the morning the sun came through the plate glass windows like a carving knife, waking him up way before he intended.  His neck hurt from the angle and he was cold, his feet still asleep as they dangled off the edge of the booth.  But he had survived...not unexpected...but in his departure earlier last night he had low hopes and very few chances of making it as far as he had come.

He saw the empty bottle of Knob on the counter, and just like that the doors in his mind blew open and she blazed in with a fury of scars and the sense of flowers plucked from stems and bite marks on lips and he remembered that he was tasting the memory of the past evening and it was bitter and it was reminiscent and it was familiar and outside was a cold that took your breath away but inside his chest it was even colder, even cooler and infinitely darker than that day outside in Wakefield.

Bathing & Strangling

Outside it was snowing, the type of snow that sits on the cusp of sleet, hard and tiny and white, blowing across the lights on the patio.  It was windy in the southeastern corner of Virginia, and it was flat so the wind came with an extra lash.  He could hear it rubbing against the house the way a cat rubs against a post.  Nudging, almost sensual.

Upstairs he had caught her, in her own sensuality.  At least to him.  He had opened the door to the bathroom where she had been bathing, and as she was standing there were a few droplets of water that fell from her.  Her back was to him, her nakedness pink from the hot water, her ends of her hair darker from the wet, and her fine shape was clear in the candle-lit room.  Outside snow spitted and blurred but her pale form was warming.  He announced himself with a slight cough and she turned her head to him.

Can you get me a towel?  She was coy, her back to him, the water droplets slowing their dripping as the water level in the tub slowly subsided.

He handed her a towel and walked out the door.  He knew when she wanted to be alone, and always without her saying it.

It had been that way for awhile now...this slow strangulation.  She would provide a bit of her, just enough sustenance to maintain.  Just a sliver to feed, like a starvation diet...just to keep barely alive.  He wasn't sure where it came from, but just like fall suddenly wakens up and it's winter...it was something like that.  Unannounced, certainly not discussed.

He heard her footsteps upstairs, and then again as she descended the steps.  There was some music on in the kitchen, something faint.  He couldn't hear any words.

Outside the snow had stopped and the sleet had started.  You could hear it on the windows, on the roof.  Against the front door.  The white flakes, so tiny before, turned into long dark gray lines.

She crossed into view and he asked her if she wanted something to drink. She held up a glass with a little bit left in it...he couldn't tell if that was an answer.  So he poured himself a glass over some ice...a large piece, very unlike the small pieces pebbling outside.

He went into the darkened living room, knowing he didn't have much time left.  Maybe just enough to finish the drink.  After a bath she was usually tired.  There had been times when the bath had been a pre-cursor...a cleansing, an anointing before they clutched and clung together.

Now it was a transition to her climbing into bed while he drove away, regardless of the weather.  She had fed him his small portion, she was still just slowly strangling the bits of him that she cared about. Such pieces were growing fewer.

He turned from the room and its cold windows and walked back towards her.  He neared her, and since she was holding the glass in her hand he gently reached out with his until they almost touched.  The gap between the glasses was tiny, it was millimeters...but it was separation.  And a border.  And whoever reached across had given in.

He moved his glass until it touched hers in a soft toast.

She didn't say anything.

He mentioned something about a goodbye, finishing his drink and putting the glass down.  She stood up, her hand coming up and resting briefly on his shoulder, moving to his neck.  Her fingers were cold from the drink...at least he liked to think that.



Outside the sleet had covered his car in an icy sheen, completely covering the windows and the roof.  It was still coming down hard and brutal, thrust by a wind and soaking his hair quickly.  He had to use his key to clear out the keyhole in the door and it didn't open at first, the ice freezing it stuck.  He pulled harder and it splintered and he let himself in.  He didn't have an ice scraper.

He turned on the engine, asking for it to warm quickly, shivering in the blast of the air vents trying to defrost the windows.  His hair had frozen a little, and was now melting, sending tiny rivulets down his back.  Tiny droplets, not too dissimilar to the drops that had fallen from her in the tub.

Outside it was dark except for the porch light.  When she turned it off he was in complete darkness, the sleet pulsing on the roof of the car.  He turned on his headlights and looked through the tiny hole the vents had created.  He tried turning on the wipers but they were still frozen.

He sat in the cold, bathed in a freezing drip of leftover snow, the crush of the night and the wind and the storm seeming to strangle his thoughts, dimming him to just very empty thoughts as he turned the wheel and tried to navigate back from where he once was.

His headlights barely raised a fuss in the sleet...

The Worth of One Extra Hour

When I collect the pennies and nickels of the minutes we spent together, it truly adds up to quite a hefty sum...but why is it now...now in these days that spread thin across many weeks that I feel like the one deficit that I truly have is the inability to spend time with you.

The way time speeds when you are kiss-close; the way it drags when you can barely even speak to me and your correspondence is a few conservative words that probably scared you to even write.

Time was never our friend...but it was our favorite part when together...usually measured in minutes but sometimes longer.

It feels like something I can no longer give you...and something you'd prefer not to part with.

I imagine if we were in the past...when we could sit in a car and listen to a radio while the rest of the world went to sleep...we'd talk..about things we worried about, things we dreamed about...a commercial coming on and then back to music...and mostly I like to think we'd sit silent.  Just grateful for the shape of you next to me...near...and just giving me your time.  Nothing else, and that would be all that I would want.

Or if we sat high in a city...the lights spread out across us....a drink before us.  Time was in the taillights of the taxis...the changing of the street lights.  It wasn't impacting us...it was just reminding us that while we were together the rest of the place kept moving on.

The time I spend away from you is heavy and dark...the time with you is bubble-gum pink and cotton-candy thin...it is so unfair.

But it is to be expected.

So given the ability to stop time tonight, for just an hour and then relive it as we set clock backs in some well-worn ritual, I wish that if I had the ability to spend any extra hour in any way then you would realize it would be to spend it with you.

In whatever shape or form that might be...listening to gaps of silence on a phone, sitting on the edge of a porch watching fireflies...on the cold banks of the Atlantic as it grays in the winter...in the post-peak stand of trees in the south when the leaves are mostly brown and crunchy...in an early morning that is increasingly darker and now that any daylight that we had saved is gone.

Time does that.  Distance does that.  Together...well...I just feel like I've run out of both.