My heart gurgled to a boil and I exhaled. I gawked oddly, in an odd eyeball configuration. I sat there and I saw him. I saw him and him and him and her. Thinking, the castle is built, swing around back. Fill the void and do so iron-clad. Do so with dumbbells and without oil. The mistake's been made. He said, "I ain't gonna fuck it up this time." The gauntlet has been thrown. How does that go? I sit and listen. A man and some dirt and a stylus.
The man sat up on a rainy urban day. He checked around. A mirror he found looked back at him. He saw the street and heard brakes and sat. "I remember how foreign it sounded to them, how they couldn't believe yuppies lived down there now." I mean, where did they think yuppies lived? Maybe they hadn't given it much thought. Maybe they had no need to. They had no need to. I saw twirling my thoughts like overcooked noodles. In the sense, in the season, I try and you falter. Which is an odd combination?
And then I realized I didn't care. I looked to the north and realized I didn't care, and the beat played on, and I oriented on myself, and I hatched a plan. I cracked through and lived differently thereafter for a time. And then I found myself awash in reluctance and regret. And then I found myself back. My cells flavorless and meek. Maybe the answer is a fresh start, a new beginning. So the log came back, as it always does. The torpedo drove towards my ship and I watched it panicked. I didn't care. The slanted eyes both drove me away and magnetized my heart, and the irony couldn't be more humorous. I slammed that dream on its head long before it mattered. I am embarrassed to be associated with certain correspondence; I am embarrassed to be associated with the Catholic faith, and with suburbia.
When the summer dresses you, you win. When the winter dresses you, I win, and in this balance, time flies. And such soaring, buzzing time passage makes me wonder, and it makes me downright symptomatic. I see a yellow tank and a, now I'm just giving up, I've surrendered. I saw a yellow tank with bum wheels. And this is just perfect: "Walk softly tonight, little stranger, into these shadows we're passing through, talk softly tonight little angel, you make all my dreams come true." Didn't even plan it. One of those mental/coincidental crossroads.
I stood there watching boat after boat embark up or out of the Hudson. It was raining and draining me and the city's spirit. I stood there at the base of the Manhattan Bridge. I stood and watched everyone disappear. I watched softly, and I talked lonely. I saw them leave and boats don't move very quickly. It's heart-wrenching, and it made the liquid in my heart boil. It boiled unapologetically. I saw the wind bully the rain procession on its side. The greyness was overpowering. There she goes with the clan: a toddler and a Queen. The boats went on and some had there own. I smoked a blunt. They're headed to the Caribbean. He's headed to save the world. She's headed somewhere she doesn't want to go. And then, in a most surprising twists, they're headed to heaven.
The window closed, now housekeeping began. The process hadn't been particulrly democratic, but that's not reality. Ya know what else isn't reality? All the shit in the periphery, and my lovely herb garden. And my lovely spread out in the country. All the details hardly made a difference. All the darkness and coziness counted so much more than the adornments and craftsmanship, and the boat, and the riverboat, and the pocketknife stuffed slickly into a leather holster, correction, self-correction, regulation. Slap slap slap slap across the face such that the hand lands where it started, backhand to the right side of the face, my mirror gawked back. I lowered my head and smiled into the summer breeze. The warehouses passed by me, the planets past me. The zip code changed twice.
And I stood there like a dolt.
