romanticizing
Up here all alone on the rooftop at midnight I cross my arms on the railing, body at an angle, suave, like the men in the magazines. I let the Hudson wind journey westward to tousle my hair, let him play, tease at the edge of my nightshirt with hints of rain. It is a cold embrace. I push my arms deeper into the railing, lean over an inch too far to watch the city below. The railing, too, is a cold embrace.
Up here all alone on the rooftop at midnight I watch a herd of taxis laze past in a gentle chorus of car horn. Dutifully they head towards their promised land, that distant triangular haze of Times Square, infested as always with crawling tourists, drumming her heart out to Mamma Mia, brightly flirting with her fluorescent moving banners. The night is young for her, after all. Below the subway grates rattle and I hear the metallic dragon’s prowl of the 1-train rumbling downtown, breathing electric sparks on tracks laid in ancient caverns dripping with water.
Up here all alone in the city of light and sound and pillars of insurance-company headquarters under a drowned-out moon I eat filet mignon and sleep in a white queen bed and yet my stomach still feels empty and my arms still feel sore
and on the rooftop at midnight I romanticize that land where the air labors with monsoon
that apartment in the side of a mountain with four people too many
where we chopstick braised beef into bowls of rice and sleep on bamboo mats on the floor
I don’t know if I ever truly loved you
but I don’t want to be alone
Oh, how desperately
how desperately I want to be home