3/27/2016
teeter tottering on my penny loafers
down Nassau street,
I smelled a Newport and remembered
why it reminded me of the days full
of princetonian guile, that were no more
two years ago to the date,
I was meeting so many new people
finding out what it was like making a habit out of going downtown.
two years later I take the train
downtown
that is, in a different town.
My paltry self, forgettable as the days went on, fading quietly in my own personal, dark mess, crawled through alleyways and down stair cases and up them to rooftops.
Now my sense of self sits slobbering on a desk, the town feels surreal to me
I prefer New York of course.
I went to visit him, sat on that conjugal bed and traced ribcage,
Looked out the window
saw all of New York
the empire shining like a
big sparkly monster,
the staid windows that each held,
You know,
a different story,
or something.
The smell of hot trash- you know,
I miss that
I tell her
"Id spend a day in a landfill just to live
there."
As opposed to an hour on
the train tracks. well, at least it is
an hour.
I grab a hot chocolate just like the old days,
on Witherspoon,
and trace the route I took a year ago
down Stockton
when I went to pick you up
from the arriving section
of the station.
Now I'm hoping
I'll hobble over to depart
and you'll walk a certain way
just in a different city
To penn station
two years or so from now, I suppose
"If I'm not dead by then," I laugh with her
I'll stay in New York for good- with you.
But I went from the permenant staid fixture on the Nassau sidewalk
to a typhoidic city rat in a year so who knows
I hope it does not happen again
for I didn't care much for Princeton
As opposed to sharing a pantry with
you
those tall grey monsters in the backdrop painting, in the Greek tragedy of life, our lives.