...My Bed. NY, NY.

Something about the clear glass pane of your new screen door mixes with the dark black paint of your old front door to form a perfect mirror.

I stood there, the quietest thing on the block it seemed. I could hear cars rolling by on streets I couldn't even see. A dog was barking somewhere in the distance... chasing a cat. I think I pictured it as a black cat, and the dog as being one of those big burly bulldogs, like from the cartoons. I could hear water flushing in the sewers and I could hear the gentle click and flicker of the streetlamp at the foot of your driveway. This was a beautiful little suburb.

You'd gone inside to... what? It's so long now that some things are like the lines of a far off novel. I saw myself reflected in the glass, my leather jacket, one size too small, but I thought it looked cool somehow, the way my shirt protruded from my coat sleeves.

I thought that maybe, at that moment, I looked older, maybe it was the jacket, maybe the fact that I hadn't shaved in a while lent something to it... maybe it was you. You were definitely older. What the hell did you see in me?

I tried to see it. My eyebrows were overgrown. I looked like a smoker. Maybe that was it... my smoker's appearance. You were inside, though, I remember, and I heard your footsteps, your heel clicks, through the door even... or, wait, your living room window was open just a crack, to let in a touch of the cool night air, I suppose. Your heels clicked up the stairs I could only imagine and into some empty bedroom where he was... asleep? I assume he was a deep sleeper.

I stepped over to the driveway and took a seat on the hood of the Prius. His, I assume. You were never big on issues. But that's okay, you had other draws. You were smart, jesus christ you were smart, but... just differently. You didn't care about politics not because you didn't understand it, but because you saw it as a system outside of your control and not worth your time. The hood gave a small crunch under my weight, the way that the old Saturn used to do, with its plastic frame.

From where I was, I could spot the light coming on in your bathroom and I had one of those moments where I saw a whole set of possibilities unfolding. I saw you flushing the toilet and waking someone... the kid maybe... or even worse, him... and then it would be over. I knew that. It wasn't the end of the world, it would just mean no sex that night, which... to a 20 year old feels like the end of the world somehow.

But, it didn't. End. The world kept turning. The light went off, and then others went on and off, following you through the house like a trail of Christmas lights. You came outside and closed the door, and it was as if you were the only thing in the world. Nothing else even sounded. Your heels played down the walk and your lipstick, newly minted, kissed me from across the way. You were so fucking sexy and you knew it.

"Did you give him a kiss goodnight?" I said.

"You're so fucking stupid sometimes," you said back, walking down and getting into the car.

I stood there and stared at your doorway.

I wonder sometimes if part of me still lives in the space between the screen and the door; if some orphaned reflection lingers, looking out on that empty street, waiting for another consequential sunrise.

...My Bed. Still Not Asleep. 6 A.M. NY, NY.

There are places we go in the rain. Places unsung by sunlight, unblemished by mother nature, places underneath it all.

In the rain, my mind is a collapsible jungle... springing to life, breathing in falling water. The drops leave footprints on my forehead when I walk, tracks on electronics as I steadily punch keys and twirl dials... water gets everywhere.

I forget who I am in the rain... that I am human, prone to illness, in this world-sized well I am a momentary immortal, salient and severe. I act as if, around me, there is an inch-thick force. I move with the steadiness of an eel through weeds or a knife through sand and though I am drenched by the steady downpour, I am as a water creature, sustained by its life force.

There are times when, stuck inside, I feel it in my heart somehow, the water pouring. I even look out the window, up towards the murky sky, and yet I don't see it coming down. Not one drop. I look out towards supposed nothingness and probe with acute faith... believing that there is rain, and, as if by shear force of will, my vision clears and each and every drop and speck is readily apparent.

In the rain, my mind is a rewound marathon. The systems trace back paths through dirt and sod, tracks that have long since been covered by time, written over like old tapes with new material... and yet the old places seem fresh in my mind when the rain comes. It washes away what I choose to know and brings a sheen to the real world below. And as I look, I am made crystal.

There are places I go, for the rain is my grand mapmaker, and I, its native son.

That's all for now.

...My Living Room Floor, In My Boxer Shorts. NY, NY.

Preach to me, bastions of the far flung light...

Hmph.

Lily is sitting like a praying mantis. I can see her through the window of my study... out there on the lawn, daring the sprinklers to catch her. Tomorrow is her 18th birthday and I know exactly what she's trying to do. She's always wanted to feel things. To know without being told. And so I'm certain she wants to feel the turn from adolescence into... what? adulthood? At this point, I don't think so... but it'll certainly be an adult enough change.

Senior year has been a struggle for our little girl. Little is another word that changes. Obviously, getting into college was its own uphill climb, not because of grades, she has those, but because Lil isn't the sort of girl who knows what she wants from the world.

I remember when she was six years old, and I sat her down on that lawn on a particularly clear night and traced out the stars into constellations. Her favorite, I imagine because she could spot it so easily, was Orion. She liked the notion that star signs still need belts. At that moment, she made the declaration that she would swim among the stars one day. I thought this would manifest itself with a love of science and astronomy... it oddly appeared a few years later as, quite literally, a love of swimming.

Maybe I should be out there with her.

No. This is her own memory. I don't know if she realizes yet how talented she is with that particular skill. Making memories. She knows exactly how to capture, caption, and categorize her days in what I imagine is a rather grand series of file folders in her mind. I'd like to learn, while I still can, how to take these memories and tie them to my being, the calm, simple way that she does. She tells stories sometimes and I'd love to tell her that she should follow in her father's footsteps and become a writer, but the wife and I agreed not to put undue influence on her... as if raising her wasn't influence enough. But, that's beside the point. I agree, begrudgingly... she has it in her though, to be a great writer, if she ever decides to.

Or maybe she'll be a teacher? She taught me enough things in her time. I remember when I was young and computers were just coming around and I was so much better with them than my parents... and I would hold it over them. Oh, foul karma. Of course, as I grew older, technology advanced with even greater rapidity... what we knew as laptops became as outdated as... what... typewriters? I suppose. But, Lily was always patient with her Dad (her Mom was always fine with the tech... and if not, she hid it well). I could see her molding young minds. But something in me, like it or not, thinks that she's meant for some greater future than simple instruction.

She could be President... well, no I don't think she'd be much interested in that. Not that she's not politically minded... I love to argue with her about whatever cause she's taken up this week or that, and, to her credit, her counterarguments have started to become rather well articulated and convincing. What I know, though, is that she wouldn't like the thought of having such a great amount of power over such a great amount of people. She's honestly humble and at peace with herself and I don't think she'd be comfortable asserting that she belonged in a place of any greater power than anyone else.

I'm sure her mom would love if she went into the non-profit sector. And, I've been meaning to bring up the fact that taking her to rallies and marches all the time could be considered undue influence... but, I've been to my share of protests and they've never really swayed me towards a life as an advocate for the underprivileged and ill-represented. So, I suppose if she chooses that path, it'll be her choice to make.

I could go on, I could imagine a thousand directions her life might take.

But, for myself, I think I'd like to remember her forever like this... alone on the grass.... eyes closed... her hair in communion with the soft summer breeze and her breath somehow in steady rhythm with the seconds on my wall clock.

At this point, I don't think I'll get to sleep tonight, my editor needs this manuscript in by the morning or else she'll cut me with something sharp I'm sure... or, dock my advance... which is the literary equivalent of a shiv stab.

It's a little unbelievable that I... that we all arrived here. At this moment.

I look back at my life, at all the little worries and squabbles that seemed so much larger in the moment... so mortally important... and it dawns on me that at this moment, I am perfectly happy. All the more perfect for the struggles that I faced on the way to reaching this place.

I don't know what to say, except... 5, 4, 3, 2... wow. Happy Birthday, Lil.

This is... well... This is a memory I'll hold onto.

As much as I would love to stay in this state forever, I have to return to my work... take it all in, Lil. Before you've entered the word of deadlines. Oh, I hope she'll be a procrastinator like her father. Nah... not really.

Okay... Chapter... 13.

Preach to me, bastions of the far flung light...

That's all for now.

...Underneath the Covers. NY, NY.

The blue looked a dullish yellow-green in the light of the dusty country laundromat.

Chan, the young-looking but probably old Chinese guy at the counter just pointed me to a machine, without looking up... which I guess saved us an awkward conversation about why I was wearing a beat-up burnished blue dress and matching heels into his place. I asked for quarters... I decided to drop the attempts at the voice at this point, he wasn't looking up from the glowing box he kept beneath the counter. I imagined some sort of fetish porn going on down there. I asked simply, how can I use the machine if I don't have change? He looked up at me, and then, without pause, he reached into his pocket and tossed me a round nosed key. Told me to bring it back once i'd finished. Sex pervert or not, Chan new how to run a laundromat.

I wasn't alone in the place, either. There was a smelly looking guy sitting in what might've been his boxers and a once-white shirt next to the oscillating fan in the corner. Behind him, creating an oddly dizzying effect, were a series of dryers, all spinning what seemed to be white sheets. He looked me over and, just like Chan had moments ago, just went back on with his business. It was kind of nice, not feeling judged in this place.

My makeup was running though, I could feel it splotching against my clavicle as the sweat maneuvered around the cliff of my jawbone and slid slowly down my neck. I opened the washing machine door and, out of habit, reached my hand inside. Nothing. I always check for change or lint or... I don't know... condoms. You never know what's going to make its way into the bowels of a washing machine.

Then I remembered the zipper.

I walked over to the man in the corner. Surprisingly, he didn't smell as bad as I thought he would... a mildly unpleasant aroma of peach schnapps and burning rubber. Without my asking, he just said... turn around. As he reached for the buckle at the crest of my back, he muttered something along the lines of 'happens to the best of us, son'. I really underestimated this fella.

Now, my chest exposed to the air, I immediately felt cooler. Even somewhat more free, my torso no lounger bound by the mesh of fabric. I slipped the whole thing down past my knees and finally stepped out of the dress.

Looking at it, lying there on the olive-colored tile, I wondered how I'd ever let myself into this predicament. I mean, there comes a time in every man's life when he finds himself alone... or at least practically alone... in an Alabama laundromat... wearing a frilly blue dress. And yet, it still surprised me... the way you can be surprised by a movie even when you know what's going to happen.

I picked up the now lifeless cloth and wedged it as best as I could through the opening of the machine. I closed the door and, looking through the glass portal, the whole thing looked like some beautiful flower caught in a bottle. The bleach went in next, clean and clear like water, or poison. Finally, I put the key in the round opening below the coin slot and turned. Nothing happened. I was about to go back and get Chan when suddenly, with a shake like an old man dancing, the machine started working.

I realized I should have probably brought a magazine. And pants. Pants would've been nice. I could have left, right then... my job was done. I had become whoever it was I was supposed to become by performing this awful deed.

Instead, I stood there... transfixed by the hypnotic motion of the machine. I watched as the deep hued blues began to peel from off the fabric. I watched the dress forget them in the rapturous embrace of the water and bleach. After a few minutes, I noticed, by the scent of things, that my friend was standing beside me. It never gets old... I think he said... where do they go? The colors? Somewhere... never gets old.

And then he walked out. He gave Chan a friendly nod, which I can't imagine drew his attention away, but was nice nonetheless, like tipping an invisible hat, and walked out the door... I think I should've been worried about him... but some part of me understood that maybe there are just people that hang around in their underwear... waiting for something to happen.

I waited long enough for a small puddle of sweat to form down by my feet before I walked over to the corner and took a seat by the fan. I closed my eyes for a minute and let the cool air wash over my skin. A shrill tone let me know it was time to get my clothes. I went to the machine and pulled out the sopping wet mass and walked it over the dryer beside the fan in the corner. I opened the door, put in the load, sealed it inside, and just as before, I turned the key and the machine began to turn. I stepped back for a moment and appreciated the effect. Now alone in the place, I couldn't quite understand why all the other machines were still drying... I assumed there were orders that Chan was taking care of.

Moments later, the series was interrupted when the machine second from the left finally dinged and stopped churning. This was followed by the one next to it, and then the one to the left of my own. The other four kept on turning, but nobody, not even Chan, seemed too interested in coming to retrieve their contents.

I took a seat in the chair by the fan and my thoughts drifted somewhere else. I thought about everything that had brought me here... and for a moment I felt especially alone. It was at this point that I awoke to the sound of another ding... but this time, it was the sound of the door chiming open. The clouds that had hovered overhead on my way there seemed to have given up all pretense and gone into full blown rain. Two more machines had stopped turning, not mine yet, so I couldn't have drifted off for very long, although my eyes had the foggy feeling of sleep.

I couldn't tell who had come in, but I saw a person, or a something, leaning against the counter as I had, presumably trying to talk to Chan. I then saw what was clearly a small Asian hand pointed in my general direction. Then, a face. A boy's face. I didn't know this kid, I didn't think so at least, but he looked at me with a great deal of purpose and a slight tinge of disgust as he walked towards my corner. As he cleared each row of washers, his body came into view.

And suddenly I knew.

His dress, a warm shade of scarlet, was much nicer than mine had been... I'd gone for the cheap stuff it seemed. As he stepped closer I saw the look in his face... don't see me... I don't exist. As he walked towards me, I saw his eyes roll across what must have looked like a series of white sheets spinning in the still working dryers. I sat there waiting for him to say something, but he seemed, for a moment at least, stunned by my general appearance... sitting there, covered in sweat, in nothing but a pair of gray boxers and a set of black heels.

Finally, he opened his mouth and said, Key.

And I smiled.

...the Lightness of a Hotel Bed. Quakertown, PA.

Sometimes I could be drowning.

Anchors haven't the will to float, I think. Not that they couldn't... if they really wanted it, the cool free air. They lost the will to rise past the sinking pull of the deep blue water.

There are days when I'm overcome by the feeling that I'm light on will and heavy on doubt and thus, I grow cumbersome metal arms and an overwhelmingly forceful base that sends me plummeting to the depths.

With you, though... I'm not somewhere on the bottom looking up. I am like a fleck of light along the water... a fallen leaf, floating along to kiss the hulls of passing ships.

We live together in an apartment that by human standards is small, but by New York standards is somewhat moderate... though oftentimes we're on top of each other. And I love you. So that helps things. And you love me... so that helps things. Too.

I sit, sometimes, on the bed and watch you type away your research papers, or something for one of your million jobs, and am lulled into a trance by the rhythm of your precocious typing. Your gentle movements on the chair, little adjustments, ever the dancer... you reach for your water glass and I'm awake suddenly, unaware I had drifted off.

Some nights, coming home late, I stand outside our door and press my ear to the crack between the frame and the hinge and try to picture what's going on inside. I can now reliably tell where you are in the apartment in a few moments. I like to think that I could surprise you, but our deadbolt makes such a heavy thud at opening that its bark announces any intruder. Some days, though, I get lucky and you're in the bathroom. You get so mad at being surprised, but I just find it funny. Because you make a cute face when you're notactuallymad the way you get. It's awfully endearing.

You're changing, though. Like everything changes... I suppose, but I was hoping your chance magic could stick to form long enough for the rest of the world to change around us. But, you're changing. You're growing. Beautiful, brilliant, brave... and I understand its a brave thing you're doing. Leaving.

Many things are easy to understand and difficult to accept. Your going certainly falls into that category. Perhaps I lack the imagination? experience? to adequately appreciate the benefits of two beds, two rooms, two addresses.

But I love you. So that helps things. And you love me. And that grows. Too.

Perhaps we'll meet again, as strangers, on a bench in central park. And I'll sit quietly, a skill I'll acquire with the practice of solitude, and wow you with an air guitar routine that will literal knock your socks off of your feet. We'll walk barefoot on the crunchy gravel and spell our names in the stones with our fingers. You'd fall head over heels for me and we'd never leave each other again.

But I could be drowning. Maybe your adventure in the big blue world will turn you into a charisma asteroid, but it might turn me into a crater. Or at least something deep down in the earth's mantle... and somewhere in yourself, you'll need to drag out a drill, a massive, meteoric drill to catch me where I've fallen. Maybe then, you'll stretch out a mile-long arm down the mile-long hole and slowly drag me up, back to the grassy outside of this graceful little rock planet. Maybe then, covered in dust and dirt, wiping the dried chunks of lava from my face, you'll tell me I am home and I'll nod and follow you anywhere.

Until we get there, I don't know how it'll all transfigure me. If I'm certain of one thing, though... it's that I want what I see here to be true there. For you and I to be together in that field. We'll spell things in the ground and roll around in the grass and lookers on will marvel at our timeless and endless love. I want to look back at a dark time with a smile and wonder at how remarkably bright the present feels in comparison. I want so many things. And I think we'll have them.

Because I love you. And that helps things. And you love me. Wow!

Like fireworks exploding.

...the Darkness of a Hotel Bed. Quakertown, PA.

I wish I had wings again.

There was a time when I could soar with the rest of the flying creatures, lifted to heights where things like dreams rest their heads. I had wings, and they were alive with beauty! Beauty akin to the first snow, or the sinking of great mysteries. Wings composed of simple things, like twigs and leaves, the stray feather here and there to make the framework whole and they would swing onto my shoulders and I would breathe them into being.

It wasn't always so easy. I began in the forest. Hidden away in a patchwork of trashcans and shrubs I collected the necessary pieces. Once they could support my weight, I began working to make them move. It's not as easy as walking, believe me. To compare flying to walking is to compare diamonds to doughnuts. It requires an inner harmony. I would begin a breathing exercise... first exhaling my doubts... everything holding me to the ground... exhale disbelief, depression, paranoia... then the big things... exhale reality... exhale certainty... exhale gravity... then, and only then, did I feel...

...taller. That's what it was at first. I grew an inch taller. And then days passed and I could grow three inches. It was another week before I realized I wasn't growing... I was floating. Just slightly. Inches above the ground. The outlines of shadows forming beneath my very own feet. I made markings with a rock against the trunk of an old elm tree beside my secret launchpad.

Weeks I spent, simply perfecting the art of floating, until eventually I could maneuver my way past the limbs of the trees and float above the treeline, and actually glimpse the surrounding houses in the distance. I saw parents pulling in to their driveways, through windows I could see kids fight over Super Nintendo... I had a key to the inside of the world. I still remember the warm breeze against my legs as the massive wings beat in time against my sides, like I was part of the wind... part of the sky.

I learned the language of other beings. The chirps of the sparrow, the calls of the proud hawk... even the thousand ways to decipher the hoots of the night owl... and let me tell you, if you let them... they will never shut up... all about mice this and rabbit that. It gets old.

I ascended to the clouds, which, if you've never been, will knock the wind out of you. I still remember colliding with a cumulus over Arlington Heights and plummeting towards the earth at a tremendous speed... don't mean to ruin the ending or anything, but I lived.

As much as I loved my life away from the boundaries that awaited me on land, I couldn't help but wonder why I was the only one like me aloft in the sky. I searched for others, even asked the birds that would speak slowly enough for me to understand... and I was apparently a unique occurrence.

I came down to the ground. Slowly. Unthinking, really. The way a child lets go of a ball without knowing. I lowered myself down, away from the sunlight, below the treetops, to where it all began.

I unstitched the wings from my teenage frame and set them down on the ground, where they became just nothings again. Just twigs and leaves and lost feathers. And I forgot the language of the flying things. I was so willing somehow to let it all go.

I stepped away, towards the western gape of the forest, towards the late afternoon sunlight, a path of trembling twigs and dead leaves in my wake. I headed out of the forest and, had I looked behind me right then, I would've seen it all changing form... trees changing direction, things that once were, being no longer... a world that I had unwittingly, though meticulously, crafted... becoming nothing more than a patch of barely suitable shelter from the seeing world.

And in the distance I could hear them... the boys of my neighborhood... their voices rattling like strung tin cans on dirt road. I wanted to join them... to live among my own kind. The unmistakable crack of a smooth round wooden bat against a smooth round rubber ball sent it gliding towards me, whistling with the speed against the current until it landed at my feet. I picked it up, and wiping it clear of dew I held it to my chest, hoping perhaps for a taste of its momentum, but it was clear that it had gone.

As I walked towards the baseball diamond, towards the pack of boys waiting to resume their game, a flight of ducks caught my eye. A part of me felt only admiration though, wonderment... as if, like all men, I had always admired them from this vantage... as if I had never traversed the northern corridor among their ranks... as if I hadn't known their names... as if I'd been human all along.

Every now and then, something in me hears the words in the birdsong... and something in me beats, once more, for wings.

That's all for now.

...Kat's Green, Art-Deco Futon. NY, NY.

I wonder what the musicians think... the ones who wrote these melodic, entrancing lines of trumpets, drums, and keys... I wonder what they think of their music being spewed forth this way... at obnoxious decibel levels... at all hours of the night... through car speakers and sub woofers so unregulated that they set of a car alarm with every chorus. I wonder if they hope one day that innocent residents of New York's Washington Heights will be awakened and step out into the streets and dance for joy.

As it stands, it makes me want to throw eggs.

A couple of moments have occasioned the throwing of eggs through my window. Both times involved overly loud vehicles. The first was a car whose owner was repeatedly activating the alarm with his wireless remote. That doesn't play well with me. In the acoustics of a crosstown block, noise spirals upwards, so any attempt of mine to interrupt their melee would more than likely just work to annoy the upstairs neighbors. Rather, I took action via ova and chucked an egg at the car. It was a pretty nice car too. Shiny and black. And then slimy along the hood with a bit of runny yellow yolk slinking towards the wheel well.

The second time was a truck double parked in such a fashion that a whole line of cars couldn't get past it. Now, look, this wasn't entirely the fault of the truck. Seriously, if you have such a big problem with it... back out of the damn block. But, since these are New Yorkers that'll much rather sit, honk, and yell for half an early morning hour rather than constructively back out, I had to take action... once again. This time I missed the first time and hit the street. Luckily nobody seemed to notice, the sound of the impact masked by the cacophonous chorus of car horns. The second one hit its mark... actually did better than I could've imagined. After landing on the roof, about half of it ran down the side and dripped nicely in through the passenger's side window. So they had a nice treat to return to when they got back from wherever they were vacationing at that moment.

I'm not a violent person by any means. I won't hit someone, unless I'm defending myself. But noise pollution is another matter entirely. I can't feel in balance in my home while boomboxes and trunk-housed speaker systems blast their way down the block. Maybe it's just me... but even if it is... I'm man enough to take action. At least... passive aggressively... from a good distance... with food.

That's all for now.