2. i'm in pittsburgh and warm and i have a bed and gee it's so good to be out of new york city!
3. also i keep retracing this route on my skin and head that my body has travelled over the past month: portland -> oakland -> chicago -> pittsburgh -> stamford, connecticut -> providence, rhode island -> stamford -> new york city -> great barrington, MA -> northampton, MA -> great barrington -> new york city -> pittsburgh. ridiculous! geez oh geez something in me is tired.
4. also, on NYC: no time for breath you can be invisible if you want! but you can't stop for too long--and if you paint your face people will know that they can smile back at you because you are nothing-in-particular rather than something-unknown-and-suspect. i liked the subways. i liked the sunshine in the barren brooklyn botanic gardens and the moments i celebrated in finding warm inside spaces for free. i liked that everyone looked different and full of quiet stories etched in their skin as they carefully did not look at each other on the subway. i wanted to scream more often, LOOK AT ME. WHERE DO YOU SEE BEAUTY? CAN YOU SHOW ME? i dug through trash and made my lips bigger and bigger, counted glares, befriended people who had just had accidents they thought were unwitnessed--spilled cups of coffee, dropped loaves of bread, missing tickets, awkward small things. there is not a lot of room for awkwardness when things are moving so continuously and so it happens a lot as small quiet private public secrets. someone at a fancy grocery store told me straight up--"this is a very extravagant place. we have lots of exotic things. they're expensive." the vague nonparticular pointedness--money and class circumscribed all of my movements so i was either ostentatious or sneaking most everywhere. do i belong here do i belong here do i belong here--
triumpantly no
now i'm out free done for the moment with being around people who are black holes of magical optimism, done with rushing. grateful for things that are free. and i will scrape my tongue and brush my teeth and draw a picture of a boy.
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