New York, I Still Love You

Since we fell in love, there comes a time at least once a year when we can’t agree on anything.

I want to stay in Friday night, you want to drag me to an art show in SoHo, a restaurant opening, a FLINTA house party with hot strangers we met at a Bushwick rave because “they seem cool”.

You know I’m a cold sleeper and still you turn up the heat until my skin is sticky like a glazed donut and I have to cover my body in blue ice packs, one on each thigh.

You just roll your eyes at how sensitive I am. It’s your way or no way. It’s actually what I loved most about you at the beginning. That you just didn’t give a shit.

You were set in your ways. Take it or leave it. I thought it was confident, now I think it’s arrogant. Like, come on! Ever heard of EMPATHY? Sociopath!

But you love being hard on people. Pushing their buttons. It’s like your kink, seeing how far you can go. How much your looks, energy and magnetism can excuse.

People look at us and I know they envy me. But sometimes you’re simply too much for me.
You’re always go-go-go, and you know I need to get my 8 hours!

The grass is always greener they say, and I want to touch that grass. Badly.
I don’t want to leave you. But I I do need a break. And so I pick a fight.
Something like, “Lower your voice. No one should yell over ravioli.”
“You’re such a European snob”, you say.
I swallow my ‘no’ because you’re right.

We jump on eggshells around each other until they break. And I pack my bags and leave.
I don’t tell you where I go. I say: an island in the Mediterranean, Florence or Berlin. Don’t call!
We don’t text. I don’t think of you at all. I don’t even talk about you to anyone.

People don’t know we’re involved, and I like it that way.
Just mentioning your name to others makes them see me in a certain light. Or actually, no light.
You overshadow people, you have that power (and you love it, admit it).
Once I mention you, it’s all about you.
Oh, cool! How’s that going? What it’s like living together? What’s your favorite thing about her?
There’s no space for me. But I miss spreading my wings in a sentence. To show them my face behind your mask. And so I pretend to be untethered.
I kiss new mouths, sleep in strangers’ linen sheets, cheat on you by trying some guy’s favorite slice.
I drag myself to queer bookstores, sculpture parks, thrift stores with vintage cowboy boots and techno clubs in Soviet power plants that shake me to the core, more than you ever have.
And yet when I’m lying in the Spanish sun and I close my eyes,
there you are.

I see you from afar after a long flight.
My face can’t help but form a crescent moon as I come closer and closer.
It still lights up like a lantern at the sight of you,
just like the day that we met.
And suddenly, every annoying little thing is a marble that plop! falls out of my brain.

There’s no one I’d rather call home.

New York, I still love you.