And This? This is More

I am on a train with my back towards the westbound direction where I have been heading for more than three decades.
It is hard to think that I am still here or that I am still making this trip.
I often think about my exit or my great escape. At the same time, I am looking back as if to remember the way things were.
Me, younger than ever, alive and well and working my first real job as a grownup.
In fairness, I looked like a high school kid in a suit. And still, school was over. At least for me.
I never finished school. I never walked with my graduating class. I never did much with college, aside from a few semesters.
I was not a student and nor was I interested in classroom subjects.

I remember though, New York City, and my fascination with her wild streets and glimmering lights.
I remember walking downtown where I had heard stories from great poets who lived there.
I wondered what it would be like to stand on a stage and read something to a crowd, a bright light on me at the center of the stage.
I had long hair at the time and two hopped silver earrings in my left ear.

I tried my best to look cool. I tried my best to pull off my look, as if to wear my James Dean approach and be my own rebel without a cause.

It has been far too long since my trips down by Alphabet City. And Saint Marks is like an old dream and all of this is like my old life is lifetimes away from me now.

I miss her . . .
My City.

I miss the dreams and my fascination with the romance I had with her, my beautiful temptress, my lover, my sinner and partner in crime.
Ah, she was my best friend and yet, —she was never real to me.

I sit back in my seat with my head tilted back. My hood is up over my head and dangling over my eyes to block the lights on the train.
It is dark outside and of course, I take my usual seat on the mostly empty train and lean my head on the window.
I have too many thoughts now. I am facing too many of my reflections and dissecting my past to see where I went left instead of right.

The intersections of our life have always been interesting to me. And yes, there are markers in my life which are times when I had to make a choice, —this is almost like two shuttle trains, both leaving from the same station but either train comes with an unknown destination.

How many times have you looked back at your past and wished you followed your heart?
How many times did you follow your gut even when your gut disagreed? And so, you made your turn anyway. You held your breath and you picked your spot.
I swear, the world is like a game show in which you can pick what’s behind door number one, door number two, and door number three—and all the while, for decades now, I wished I picked door number one.
But, no.
I chose another door.
Put simply, I chose the wrong shuttle train.
I chose the wrong life.
I chose the wrong love.
I chose to play it safe, even if my safety sacrificed true happiness, and in the end, I turned around after the years went south. I viewed my choices with contempt and regret.

I saw the things I wanted most and how I forfeited my truths. I saw what happened when you look back with regret and wished you had started when the opportunity presented itself.

Is this more?
Am I less?
Are we so different?
Or is everything polar opposite; and so, you are you and I am I.
Our enemies are both foreign and domestic and so, I find my battles have been all too consuming.

The morning train moves into work faster than I want it to.
I can feel my body shaking as the train rolls fast down the tracks.
I will be underground in a few minutes.
The train will dive into a tunnel and head beneath the East River before pulling into Pennsylvania Station.

This place has so many memories for me.
I remember my younger years and watching all the Long Island girls with their spoiled debutante outfits and their laughter at the homeless. I remember them missing their trains on the way home, which was funny to me, —seeing the pretty rich girls all drunk and laying on the bum-piss floors. And they lay there in their high-fashioned clothes, sick with puke stains, and thinking to myself “Who’s laughing now, the spoiled little rich girls with daddy’s credit card, or the bums who previously slept on the same floor?”

I recall a morning when a young man thought he was tough in front of his team of girls. He decided to poke fun at one of the homeless men outside of Grand Central.
The homeless man asked, “How big is your house?”
The young man said “Huge!” and laughed.
The bum dropped the mask to share his intentions and show that if need be, he can be more ferocious than the youngster with a wise mouth.
“My house is bigger than yours,” said the homeless man.
The younger one laughed.
“This whole city is my house,” said the bum.
“You are in my house now.”
“So, since you’re a guest in my house—you best be polite. Understand?”

“Otherwise I will throw you out of my house in a way that you have never seen before!”

The young man knew to stay quiet.
I remember the girls he was with.
I remember watching all of their smiles fade from their wise-ass fashion to something uncomfortable and frightened.
“Let’s see how your big house and your mommy and daddy feel about that.”

To be honest, this was one of my most favorite things I have ever seen in my city.

 I know that I will never do a reading downtown, and nor will I take my old walks like I used to.
My geography has changed and so have the landscapes of my old stomping grounds.

It’s amazing to think about this—I have been coming to work as a grown man for almost 35 years now.
I still have my same fascination for the city. Only, I appreciate the art I see from a different perspective.
I have moved from who I was, a long time ago. I am nothing like my former self and yet, my dreams and my former childhood fantasies are still very real.
My desires are all pertinent to my hope that somehow, I can be like what Frank Sinatra sang—because “If I can make it here, I’ll make it anywhere.”

It’s up to me.
Right?

Wherever you are out there . . .
Please know that I am familiar with my faults and flaws.
I know all about my past.
I know about the traumas that harmed me and the tragedies that shaped me.
I know what I have done and yes, I know what I have to pay for.
Trust me, all debts will have to be settled at the end of business, which is a metaphor for life at the verge of death. All debts will be settled.
Come hell or highwater.
Trust me.

I know why I took special care of the knife wounds in my back. And I understand more about why I kept my wounds fresh—so’s not to forget the pain.

Nothing hurts worse than being alone.
Except being sick and alone.
I know this.
Nothing is worse than laying in bed and feeling so lifeless that you think to yourself, “I could slip away and die right now, and nobody would know until the stink from my body reached the neighbors.”

I know you are out there.
I know you can feel me (somehow)
And I know why you look the other way.
Or why you ignore me . . .

I know the shuttles to my future left a long time ago.
I know there is no going back and perhaps there’s no way to repair what was destroyed. However, I am still here.
Destroyed and broken, but willing and able.

I am still me.
I am still open to the fact that maybe I can change
or perhaps we can change
and maybe the fights can be over
(for now.)

Do you know what fascinates me about you?
You are a representation of all my cool fantasies in New York City.
You would be my debutante.
My one and only.
And I love that.
I equate you with my dreams and somehow, you are kindred and more, you are the destined soul which complements the broken ridges of my heart.

I don’t want to be judged.
I don’t want to be condemned anymore.
I don’t want to fight.
And I know that bygones will not always be bygones.
But I won’t care much about anything else anymore.
I won’t care about the snow, which piled up over the weekend.
I won’t care about the winter.
I won’t care about the subways or how the shuttles I missed threw me off course.

I won’t care about anything—

If I have you.

I love you