Good Or Bad, I Was One Of The Ones

Do you know what I miss?
I miss the vibes. I miss the energy.
I miss the late nights and the gas tank, which was my ability to go all night long and somehow, I could still make it to work the next day.

I miss my younger years in the city.
I miss the feeling that came over me when the music turned loud. And I remember this well.
I miss the dance floor, crowded with bodies.
Everything was hot about this, including the bodies that moved and swayed with each other, like, up close and all too personal.

I miss the long, hot summer nights.
I miss the ability to lose myself in the moment. I miss the lack of concern for the future because the future was something that happens to old people.
I miss the feelings that come when you can rebel and disconnect because nothing was so important and no one was so intrusive. No one could interfere enough that I could not erase my mind and get lost in the concrete wilderness of New York City.

I was alive then. Of course.
I was alive much differently than I am now.
And I am alive now
Still

I miss the late-night walks through the city streets. I miss my connection to The Hudson River. I miss walking and looking across at Jersey, as if New Jersey was another country, foreign as ever.
I remember doing this when the moon was full and the top of the river was like a rippled sheet of black glass, reflecting the moonbeams and mirroring my worries and fascination with life and the thrill of what it means to be alive.

I miss the rush of young romance and of course, I miss the validity of being young and finding myself in the wild or more sexual festivals, which I swear these things only take place when you are young and crazy.

I miss disappearing from work and having my little wild bouts in staircases or in supply closets or to be honest, “we” did it everywhere and anywhere we could back then.

I miss the ideas.
I miss the drive.
I miss the fantasies.

I miss the wonder of what it would be like to stand on a stage and read poetry to a small crowd. I miss the wonder of what this would be like with the houselights on me.
Then I would share myself and see the crowd react when I shared from the heart.

Beautiful.
I love that word, though it changes like a chameleon in colorful climates.
And I am not so different nor colorful.
But I want to be different.
I want to be colorful.
I want to be more too
but that’s an idea for another day.

I could stand on the stage.

I’d say:
My only heart is true
though my only heart is miles from here
and I am miles away.
I am far from my home a
nd further from the rooftop
where December romances
are warm and somehow,
the details of laws or decency
lose their meaning when a boy meets a girl
and their two become one.

Maybe I could tell the crowd,
sometimes, you have to do it
just to say
we did it
and leave nothing left
undone.

I’d have told them,
my breath exists only in yours
like being held by the sun
which then becomes the moon
before passing in the wind
that moves through me like a whisper
and mentions her name.

And I could have stood on the stage and showed my all. I could have shown them everything—or I could have exposed my truth and shared my art, which is really my only version of both lust and love and life and the lust for all the above.

I wish I had taken the chance.
I wish I tried instead of swore on my fear and then faded from my own glory.

I could have stood on the stage and said,
If I listen . . .
. . . I can hear you in my thoughts.
and if I look . . .
. . .I can see you in my dreams
and on the movie screens behind the walls
of my eyelids.
But my only hope is that someday
Soon . . .
 . . .I will hold you in my arms
forever.

And boom, the mic could drop, the spotlight would shut, and just like that, I could have walked off the stage and I’d have been happy.

I miss the long walks and the moments of gravity that grounded me.
At the same time, I missed how these moments of awareness came along to set me free.

There were too many times when I wanted more, but I was too afraid to try.
Or maybe I was too afraid to get close, only to be removed or told, “sorry,” but you’re just not enough. or “This one ain’t for you, kid!

I have always been a dreamer.
I was never tough, but I wore my scars and perfected my speech to make me seem like I was.
I did what I did to keep people guessing and make them question their own safety, or so they knew to keep their distance.

There are only a few times when I felt the most alive.
Once, I felt alive when I walked into a place called The Red Zone.
There was another time I felt free at Webster Hall.
And there was a night at The Tunnel and another time at The Twilight Zone.
I had a few nights at Live Psychic that meant something to me. And I had a few times when I wished I had met you back then because I wouldn’t have wasted my youth on my young life.

I know that I am most alive with one person
and one only
but I am not with that one
so life for now
is lifeless
for now

I wrote a story about revenge . . .
a team of kids turned on one another and of course, the poor one was the one who wore the scars of what happened the most.

I remember the story well enough to think about what inspired me to create it.
I remember thinking about the feelings of vengeance and the satisfaction when envy is solved and retaliation is served. I provided this with a source of violence that would otherwise be called horrendous. But to me, I called this “justified.”

I am not that person anymore and nor do I have the need to find that kind of revenge.
No, the revenge I want now is simple.
The revenge I want is the one that comes when I realize that I don’t need revenge at all.

I want to live like was young again. Only, I don’t want to go back.
And I don’t want to switch positions.
I don’t want to lose my history.
I don’t want to go back or have the need to rewind and erase the nights behind me.
No, I want to keep them to remind me why I need to keep going and moving forward.
I want my memory to serve me well so that when (or if) I get what I want, I will hold this for the rest of my life – or longer.

I don’t need to change “what was”
No, I want to live now and go forward.
But even more, I want to realize that I can stay up late and watch the sun come up.
And I don’t have to excuse myself or make excuses for the way I thin or feel.

One day, you and I will be on a beach somewhere south where the sands are white and the palm trees are kind.
And I will look at you and say my youth was crazy—and maybe it was not always happy.
But I was wild once. And so were you.
I want to be wild again but wilder than ever in the best way possible.
And then I will say that we should “do it” just to say that we “did it!”

I never had much money when I was young.
I never had much luck either.
Then again, I did manage to survive for a while, and I did make it this far.

I don’t need the stage anymore.
I suppose my point is I avoided too much and stood too cautious.
I never dared and yes, this is me.
I am that one.

I want to live.
I want to love.
I want to laugh and learn.
I want to pull up to a all-night diner in the middle of nowhere, late as ever, and eat a meal that we have no earthly business eating.
Yet, we ate it all
We did it just to say we did it.

Please, I’m begging.
And please, Mother May I
be kind to me
send me my dreams.
let me touch her
and let me touch my toes in the white sand
with the palm trees behind me
and let me see the sky above
blue as ever
wild
beautiful
and free

No one will ever have a hold on me
like she . . .