Pretty

11pm

I saw them burning Tuesday morning on my way to work. Going across the GWB as always. That was a shock. Then they closed all the bridges and there I was on the other side. Stuck. Crashed at a friend's parents house. Went back to work today. Came home tonight over the GWB as usual. No traffic, no tolls.
Got my bike and thought I would ride down Broadway as far as they would let me. Reconnect with the City. All seemed normal through the blocks of Columbus. Then the 90's, 80's, 70's and all the Upper West Side. People sitting outside at restaraunts, normal, eating drinking talking. Then started to see a few more cops than usual on the corners. After 59th street every corner had cops. Through TImes Square with all its TV, lights and information. A mysterious bright point, suddenly, in this dark journey.
Ended up on 7th Ave after the TImes Square Shuffle. Here is Madison Square Garden quiet at 8:13pm. Fewer and fewer cars on the road, more flashing lights. Had to turn left at 14th street roadblock. Then see tow trucks taking dust covered and smashed police cars uptown on 6th ave. Lots of flashing lights. Hang a right on 5th Ave heading south again and no one stops me. Washington Square Park and a Candle Light vigil. Many people. Many candles. Many tears.
Through park and over to Broadway again. Stop in the street to adjust my music, Lucinda Williams, Essence. No one honks no one to honk. Down to Houston. No cars on the road easy riding. Put air in my tire at the gas station across from the Puck building (ed. note: gas station is now a chain store). Smell of burning permeates the City tonight, I noticed it when I first left my place on 122nd street.
Forced to go left at Houston roadblock. Before turning north on Ave B I go into a store on the corner. cops everywhere. Ask one to watch my bike. He does not smile at the humor. I decide it wasn't really funny. apologize.
No further south allowed unless you live there or have a good story. I got no story. Seems the city ends tonight at Houston. I stop at downtown Max, italian restaraunt, say hi to Luigi, who also works at the uptown Max that just opened on my corner.
Now through alphabet city, though i have not heard anyone call it that in a while. Coffee on Tompkins Square. Over to 1st Ave on 13th street. East village has no cars on the street but quite a few people out and about. Up 1st Ave past the hospitals. All kinds of missing person flyers are starting to crowd the walls. Sad. Get diverted at 28th street so over to 3rd Ave and north again. Getting busy and crowded again. TV truck everywhere. Reporters in all the usual places, Times Square, Bellevue. Ride by the Empire State Building. Lonely giant now. Dark.
Across 42nd street back to west side. See Times Square again. Cut up 44th and then across to 9th Ave. North again heading home. Lots of people out here even though there are no shows on. At 59th decide to call it all okay. I've seen enough The upper west side is totally the same. So I get on the subway. A train, next stop 125th street. Get off and immediately smell that smoky smell again. It is everywhere, even down in the tunnels. 125th and Harlem seem quiet.
I stop at uptown Max and even though the kitchen is closed, Rosanna has them make me some pasta since I had told her I was hungry and had just got back into the city, which was true metaphorically. I told them not to but some people insist on just being nice.
My trip was over. The city had re-entered my blood. Being away from it during this time had made me jittery. I know its alright now. Will be alright.
So, maybe nothing bad has happened. Perhaps it was all a dream. Except, I could not see those buildings when I came across the bridge. The skyline was unbalanced, skewed like I am feeling now.
On the TV, a bomb threat at Empire State Building, people running madly down street I had just ridden. Weird. Half an hour later, deemed a hoax. I am going to bed. Long day of work tomorrow. Giulani said we should all return to normal now if we lived above 14th street. Yesterday he said to take the day off. Its amazing how people listen to him!
All is well except that its not. The city is shattered. Heidi is stuck in colorado. i'm alone.

Time will work its weal
We bruise but heal
if for no other reason than to go on
to see the other side of this madness
arrive at the spot of
of i don't know what. A moment of goodness?

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note: i couldn't finish this poem that night. now i have a few ideas. but they're not pure to that moment. it's tainted. by what followed. politically and personally. Heidi left me. Bush lied to all of us. (neither of those should have been surprising, and one of them wasn't) soldiers and civilians died. are dying. I'm alone still, but trying to believe still, in love. In redemption. In healing. In diplomacy. I know it's alright. That I'm alright. That we're all over it, except for the remembering. The question is, did we set the bone correctly before sewing things up and letting the scars take over. as a point of pride. See my scars. I have suffered, used as an accusation. when really, what we should be doing is quietly giving thanks that we're still alive to be trying to love. That we didn't give in to despair and hate and utter vindictiviness (well after a while anyway) and are now in a position to truly change; to change in our selves how we view the past and how that allows us to move forward gladly, and change in the politics that said it was okay to scar but not to heal. both are tenuous and will require intense work in the short term to bear fruit.
but i tell ya, that's where i'm headed, the future. i'm nearly done with the past. at least the part i've been carrying on my back. some parts of the past has legs though. and the only thing to do with that bastard is to keep moving just a little ahead. "Yossarian!, what?Jump!"