Feel This Real

It was a mistake, I should have known, I knew. You open a door, the wind will catch it, blow it wide open, you haven't nearly the strength to sneak just a peek. Memories, long buried in the panic of departure, seep through your rigid defenses and prick your every nerve. It was too hard to go, you simply forgot you had ever been anywhere else.

Years ago, New York City beamed like a jewel on the unattainable horizon. It was a place I would never reach and a life I would never live. But somehow, fates smiled upon me and took me there, gave me a West Village street and a Manhattan soundtrack, gave me days and nights and a place where I could finally recognize my own face in the mirror. That city let me bleed all over its concrete and steel, gathered me up when the night grew too long, carried me home, and kept my body warm another day. I trusted New York like nowhere else and, in return for its safe walls, sang it endless praise and showered it with adoration.

The end came too quick. Adventures beckoned, May itched with change, I don't know what happened. New York stood quietly by and let it. Its veins run quick, I was soon washed out of its system. My veins run slow, my memory, though kept from the light, keeps every trace, every whispered smile.

And the truth is
I don't know who I am
without you.