Summer is a vulgar season, and that redeems it. Bride and groom sit at the end of the bar. They sip their drinks sullenly through straws. They stare down at the oak. Occasionally they look up and smile into her phone camera.
She is Korean. Her white dress is short and her veil made of nylon. He is Italian. His tuxedo is traditional. I watch them and feel sorry, because they seem unhappy on their wedding day. But people in New York become not so much people, but impressions of them… so I’m only a little sorry. Heat is a confusing sedative. People cannot think or speak properly, so they scream out loud or in their melting subconscious. Bodies burst out of clothes. People don’t bother to wrestle them back in. Man and woman are sweating at the end of the bar. But yes, stay just as you are. sip sip sip
This week my emotions were like bombs. I saw them in front of me, popped them in my mouth, swallowed them naively, and they burst inside of me. I rode the N from les to the edge of astoria, drawing a horse, and then back to les and into Brooklyn, drawing a lady. I got off and took buses back to queens, smoking cigarettes at transfers and crying uncontrollably behind big sunglasses. sip sip sipWhile cold makes me sink deeper into my body, heat makes me want to escape it. Summer heat makes me feel as if I’m on the brink. My skin feels too tight, my hair too thick, my time too long
Sometimes New York gets me in a tizzy. I can find the people in it bleak and belonging to a world that is offensively small. And I don’t mean small, like, the barrier of entry is too high, or exclusive, or impenetrable. I actually think it would be somewhat easy to penetrate; so many of those inside want so badly for love by someone halfway attractive, talented, or with some professional potential. I mean small as in spoiled, unimaginative, repetitive, and predictable. It happens. I understand. I’m sure it’s livable from the inside. But watching it has depressed me. As has the heat. sip sip sip
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