ghosts

Wednesday

20 mi bike ride: the city spelled something out for me. I rode fast to manhattan through greenpoint. a bird shit on my leg, which marks the third good omen 3 days in a row. Monday 11:11 lit up on my phone, tuesday I picked up a lucky penny, and now this. Perhaps I'm doing something right, perhaps not. I rode slow down 2nd, Madison, and 5th Ave. I kept my head up, admired the buildings, basked in their shadows, glided in and out of traffic. I rode up and down the island in search of the water that eluded me. I thought of how I always vowed to never give up good love, how silly I thought Meredith and Derek were for wasting all that time when they could have just been together, loving each other and building a life. I guess that was naive of me, the childish simplification of The most complicated dynamic that revolves around The most complex feeling known to man. because here I am, truly giving it up. letting it go. committing an act of what I once thought to be great hubris, with what I once considered a great lack of perspective. It is necessary for now though, which is a great tragedy, though one I believe in. I rode past the park where we kissed for the first time in New York, realized that it was that, and then pouted. 

Sunday

Finality is what I struggle with: clear and cut decisions with clear and cut consequences. My moods are so ridiculous and dramatic and they swing wildly from left to right. I am comically fickle, certainly feminine in my emotions and wiles, presumably innocent though effectively manipulative as most women are. This is why I struggle with irrefutability. Conclusion is much too sad and frankly I don't believe in it, not really. Even within death there’s some wiggle room. but for the sake of myself I must believe in this instance. For all intents and purposes, we are lost and to never to be had again, a glass shattered into a million tiny pieces, fragments so sharp they cannot be touched without bloodshed. So for now I sit with the mess of haunted debris. Loss stays with you one way or another.

Basement was boring. Halloween, too. everyone wore the same harness that was ultimately unflattering. the music was uninspired; I swear the democratization of djing is killing the form. I could see no one's face so I waited in the pool of gyrating bodies, mostly gay guys. the smoke that clouded the room made me lightheaded. At one point I felt like I couldn't breathe. I found a stone bench and scrolled through old messages. I figured that I might as well, while bored, indulge my sadness. someone leaned over and asked me to turn my brightness down. I thought this was rude. Don't you know the depths I have sunk to? how dare you pull me out. 

I walked home alone. a man told me that I looked sad. I didn't answer. He told me again and insisted. I kept walking. I slept three hours and went to work. It rained and was cold. I did my job the best I could. 15 minutes before I was to leave, h came in, a decrepit regular with gray skin. He reeked of piss and growled at me: Don't put me in a corner. We didn't have a free table so I pulled over a chair. He growled again: Don't forget about me, and then drifted in and out of sleep. He never usually growled, never seemed so close to death, so frustrated with his own limitations. I feared that in that chair, on my watch, he would die. his eyes would sink even lower into their sockets, his complexion would gray even further, his odor would worsen and shift, his limbs would become ultimately stiff. 

A table opened up. I helped him there. He clutched my arm, shuffled along painfully, twisted and bent into the seat. 

He shook tremendously before clutching my arm. his nails were long and thick and white like his hair. I felt hopelessly ill-equipped, devoid of grace, desperate to get him from one chair to the other. I had never been touched by a man so seized by death, so drained of life though still lurching, a true dead man walking. He came in the next three days. I held my breath and performed the same ritual each time. I watched him devour latkes and salmon and eggs. 

Wednesday

At my other job a woman walked in and sat at the end of the bar, ordered the whole tasting menu. She quietly wept as she ate and no one knew why. She scribbled on her check that she had eaten here with her late husband and then thanked us for a beautiful meal and meals past. I can't imagine what tastes evoked what feelings and which memories. how devastating a finality.

I insist nothing ends, though I find it hard to remember that this too shall pass. I tend to get caught up in my circumstances. I am very, very impatient. It's the short-sightedness of youth, naivety that longing makes more acute, the illusion of conclusion. Though I am convinced of it, I must remind myself that finality does not exist, not really nor truly. This, too, shall heal, change, evolve, bear fruit. I cannot question these facts, like a good Christian. Faith, oh yes, yes, I remember.