Natalie said I must post, but this is what happens when I post too late at night:
On the walk home I remember suddenly that I used to cry each time I entered the city, pressing my nose against the glass of the taxicab window and gasping at the stark black shadows against the greyly polluted sky. The drivers would continue on in platitudinous late-night monologue, indifferent to my ecstasy. The night is split in half by a searchlight sprung from a club that reclines far above the road mazes, and the people inside it will be up far later than I will, tonight- bathed in red glow and perhaps scrutinizing the passerby, as I do, sometimes. But I am not immune to the craving for the same selfishly expectant instant gratification that propels girls in soft leather through the wet streets and neon. I flick my tongue back and forth across the outside rim of my paper coffee cup, a habit I picked up I can’t imagine where- Am I afraid of losing even those careless drops to ice or evaporation? Or too lazy to twist my wrist and gain another swallow? There’s a man who runs by me at the corner, where I hesitate between safety and desire, choosing tonight’s pathway home. Hair spins around me as I turn and watch him hurrying by, intense in his green army coat and protective scruff. His homelessness and purposefulness seem intimately connected, and for at least a moment I’d gladly exchange identities. There’s a gas station still open where I buy batteries and stand in the artificial light, unpacking them with impatient fingers- I wonder if I spend hundreds of dollars on such purchases each year, enough to buy a new coat, or a dozen books, invested instead in the utter necessity of musical accompaniment for the last 4.5 minutes of the journey home. Clouds of boys waver past me; it’s Wednesday night, and I think I know where there’s Ladies Night, where they would be likely to be headed through the slush and streetlights. My protective knowledge of their destination feels oddly maternal; I hope they arrive there safely, I hope they appreciate. The last time I Entered it was nearly dawn, the bus driver frightened me, and 59 passengers were awkwardly unconscious in the swaying monotony, but though I woke up on the highway and rode for half an hour in silence, when we came over the bridge and I saw the city I still almost cried, leaning forward in my seat and wishing I had some way to articulate the fullness of the high-rise skyline that belongs entirely to me.
I do think that was actually when I decided to stay here for longer than the anticipated 3 years, though I might prefer to ascribe it to the later discovery that some of my favorite professors have returned to teaching, or the gradual realization that I can’t realistically take all the courses I would like, in such a condensed time frame. There’s a slight small dent in the skin above my left hip, where I always lean against my building’s door to push it open, and really I just don’t imagine I’ll ever own a place this way again.
I do think that was actually when I decided to stay here for longer than the anticipated 3 years, though I might prefer to ascribe it to the later discovery that some of my favorite professors have returned to teaching, or the gradual realization that I can’t realistically take all the courses I would like, in such a condensed time frame. There’s a slight small dent in the skin above my left hip, where I always lean against my building’s door to push it open, and really I just don’t imagine I’ll ever own a place this way again.