rain in the village
a poem
i’m in greenwich village
at a coffee shop
near the corner of 6th ave
and waverly place
irony hitting me in thick wet
drops from the sky
it’s raining in new york
cold, damp—
the blustering melancholy
feeds the swell of
emotion in my chest
“breathe me” feels
safe in my ears
a twisted hug of grief from
a version of your early
20 something self,
reminiscent of hour+ long baths
breathing in the music, wanting
to breathe in the water
she’s hurting, and so are you—
both lost, both alone in the ache
but there’s no bath this time
not this time
yet…
and yet, still,
you’re caught in the same sorrow
once again,
you’re feeling the same loss and pain
of not being good enough (too much)
of not measuring up
to half the measure of a man
who’s almost a foot taller than you
in physical height
but maybe after all this,
he too,
is the smallest man who ever lived
joining the ranks
of emo sad boys with drug problems
but unable to ever really quit you
unable to leave the little internet
bubble of access he has left
a choice he has to make all his own,
not one you’ll make for him
not again.
not this time
yet he says things like
“please delete my number”
the last line shared between you
more potent than any little line of
white powder of crushed pills
or little white lies
you thought he was in rehab—
thought he’d finally quit
the game of self-destruction
change the narrative
you wanna ask,
“does your sponsor know
you still trade the comfort
of your recovery
for the venom you once
asked me to delete—
proof you’re still watching,
still clinging to
the wreckage we left behind
despite telling me,
‘please delete my number’?
funny how you couldn’t
follow through—even now,
watching me heal
like a ghost, lurking from
behind the glass of your screen”
you don’t though—
ask, that is
you sit in your bitterness
your anger
your white hot rage flowing through
your veins like a million and one
rivers and roads leading to
the heart that loved so deeply
so freely
so openly
and you hold that younger you,
close and tight
tell her she is enough
her intensity is a GIFT
“i got you
i got you
i got you
i got you
i got you”
you say and you’re both crying,
tears matching the coffee shop
window panes,
my pain reflected
in the window panes, weeping
with the rain,
a mirror to my own pain—raw,
transparent, and inescapably real
sitting here, i wonder if the world outside can see me—
fractured, but unashamed,
still feeling all the rawness,
all the weight