city love poem; letter to a friend

  
city love poem

he sees me running for the train, 
breath bursting, eyes manic, the glow of words saying 
south ferry ten minutes away. 
we make eye contact for a moment
he looks down at his phone, the glowing screen stealing his attention from me,
as he lets the force of the subway doors close on his shin, 
forcing the metal to choke on his leg and open their mouths,
so that i, too, can be swallowed whole. 

we ask him if he has seen two men in chicken suits
walking around williamsburg,
his laugh takes him and us by surprise,
chest shaking with the force of it,
he waves us closer offering us free falafel, 
one each just for making him smile
and we walk through the sweaty summer air
burning our tongues on hot falafel as we walk down metropolitan ave
looking for our friends,
drunk on tequila, summer, and laughter.

he is fifteen? Sixteen?
it is hard to tell ages once you grow out of them, 
there is a shadow of a mustache splashed across his face. 
card, i say, handing it to him.
it is the only word i ever say to him. 
i measure my puberty against his own,
find myself disappointed when he meets his milestones ahead of me.
i come in one night, half past tipsy
with sunglasses of flames, 
pants of leathers and a shirt of melding blues. 
when he meets my eyes he grins. 

they say your twenties are the loneliest times of your life.
everyone feels the force of it pushing against them,
but no one ever talks about it, 
discontent in all our lonely.

but here, these moments when
in a city of millions i can meet another’s eyes
and see them seeing me.

the city never blinks.  






letter to a friend

when we met i was red and you were yellow
and together we burned the city golden.
there was nowhere i went without you by my side, 
nights spent flirting with women who didn’t want us, 
looking down their white noses at us.
the west village became our domain, 
stonewall our inner sanctum.
two brown girls drinking the time away
evenings spent listening to the drums in the middle of washington square park,
the fountain spraying our legs as we giggled over wine. 
‘i am a bad bisexual,’ i admitted, 
‘i should sleep with more women, but I can’t stop wanting a dick in me.’
‘if you want dick, then you want dick,’ you said, 
pouring the last of your merlot into your mouth with an elegant shrug,
broadway. houston. st. marks.
the city bright from the force of our glow, even in the night. 
‘i’ll come back,’ i said, ‘it’ll be just like it was,’
but all fires die out in the end,
the city doesn’t glow the same without you.