tangerine

rishi and bonnie. kent boys', brooklyn. 12.5.08




the people we tie our expectations to are always the wrong ones, or even the wrong things. i've started tying my expectations to the past instead and it works out better.

disappointment = had a happier memory before, you lucky person.
a good surprise = progress.

i'm lucky because the best advice i can give myself is to remind myself of the big basic concrete blocks of my life. and walking down the street i run into faces i know, and you can only ever know a face in a good way, and the cold air smells like new england, almost, sometimes. woodsmoke blows over from the west village. a woman loses her scarf and it flies over in the wind and hits the newspaper man. he drops newspapers in surprise and they blow straight up, and the face of a little boy appears in the window of the twelfth floor, in awe at the ambition of the rebellious high-flying first page of the new york post.

in december it gets so cold that the only thing not frozen is your brain. you say hello to the brains walking around in giant downy coats. and when you get to the place you're going to, you appreciate having a body like you never have before, except last december.

and in these rooms you smile at all the others, in that perfect warmth of People because you realize it, finally, now. because even the apartments are cold. because the only thing that you can do is be with People.



on the late night walk home you pass the one other one walking on the quiet brooklyn side street. you are both two-am-cold. through your wrapped heads and bodies you make eye contact.
standing on the opposite sides of the tracks you wave without waving as your trains come to take you away from the last People of the night. the last person who knows you exist until the day.