The streetlight looks lonely at this time of night…or maybe it’s just me. My consciousness seems to be wavering as of late, going in and out of sleepy-eyed daydreams that sometimes drift off into slumber only to find that a new day has arrived and the hours of old are precious ones that I can’t get back. A mist drapes these desolate streets, but maybe it’s not so desolate, and instead, uninhabited. All the real people are on attuned schedules and they know better than to vagabond themselves from block to block, drifting like wet concrete ideas into hardened bodies with a curfew to go by.
Today I collided with stimuli. I was met with acceptance and greeted with negatives, took care of business and failed other objectives. It happens, I guess. I pumped myself with testosterone only to watch it slowly deflate into the cold, I walked a dog, gathered steps and made money only to see that money disintegrate into the air, making decisions on a whim that took care of myself for a moment, but maybe one day will come back to bite me in the ass. During these moments I did not feel alone. The dog snuggled past my legs, a brother and I exchanged red tablecloth dinner stories of wiseguys breaking other wiseguy balls for not coming equipped with pants that had deep pockets. Rochester accents and head honcho vignettes.
I went to a place where they print photos of myself, old photos of a me that I don’t recognize very much. I don’t remember how he felt, either. The irony, of course, is that I will use this 2016 version of myself with the hope of luring in people with decision making power to select me amongst the crowd. Maybe they see something differently in those eyes.
And if it weren’t for the train, I’d probably be in the wind by now. Back and forth and back and forth I go from borough to borough, from place to place, hoping to call it my borough for a while. I was taken aback at meeting a landlord that seemed to care. A nice room, I thought. Affordable, I thought. Does it fulfill the criteria? Will it be the right decision? Doubts and wonderings that fill a questioning mind.
If it weren’t for my brothers out here, then I don’t know where I would be. I saw a newly married man, who still looked the same, but maybe a more youthful, less stressed glint in his eye. We exchanged histories that had only recently passed, talked about our currents, and wondered about our futures. The sometimes scary thoughts in the middle were perfectly complemented by the Sichuan noodles and dumplings and duck that graced the table and then graced our stomachs. So much talking and laughing and then more talking that we probably annoyed the kind woman who was filling our glasses with talking serum.
A movie in a cinema. May this never fade away. Certain movies must be watched in a theater and with hundreds of people around you who also feel the same way. I saw a movie, “Roma” that was as exquisite as I could have ever hoped or imagined. A constantly tipping scale surrounding and involving a rarely-seen protagonist that captivated me in only the best ways. The movie felt, for lack of a better word, real. There was never a sense of comfort for this woman. No happy moment lasted long enough to prevent the sobering moment that was always lurking around the corner. The whole movie swayed my eyes and kept my attention throughout, more often than not feeling like an open hand being thrusted right into the middle of my chest, grabbing it whole, and not letting go. It was one of those films where everyone had to stick around for the final credits, to process, to digest, to take a deep breath.
That when the people filed out and exited the theater and a growing of group of friends became a couple and then a train station reduced the friends, the brothers, to one, I was reminded that memories and experiences are beautiful things; they lift us when they are happening, they percolate us, but they leave me alone, sometimes, and I am left to take them with me all by myself. They are memories. They were. They become the misty streetlights in the barren neighborhoods of the homes where the families are together inside.
I dreamt a dream last night, which of course I can’t remember as well as I would have hoped because dreams have a funny way of fading, don’t they? What I can remember is being suspended in the air, maybe a couple of thousand feet and I was overlooking this unbelievable city I had never been to, but still seemed to be familiar with. It was almost like I was at the top of Rio, under the Christ the Redeemer statue, except there was no statue and for all I know this wasn’t Rio. I was holding onto a couple of wooden bars, almost like those devices you see at a gym with the medicine ball resting on your back, so you can do some ab work, except there was no medicine ball and I wasn’t doing ab work, but holding on for a period of time I didn’t know, but had to be finite, I thought. I had a friend who was in the same position as me. Holding onto those two bars, hanging in the air. Well, we both must have known we couldn’t do this forever, so he decided he would take it into his own hands and jump towards a structure several feet away in the hope of latching onto something and living to see another day. Well he did jump, but he wasn’t able to latch onto anything. And I think in those seconds of watching him jump and fall further and further down and knowing that my time would be coming (these seconds happen so fast, you know)…
I woke up.
