Long dead light

I sit at a tiny booth and pretend I have authority over people and which movie they should watch.

 Benevolently allowing them to pass if they have the correct piece of paper.

 As the people cross my little greeter booth to watch movie stars, 
I spend my time stargazing people.

 A little boy steps on an escalator while clinging to his father's hand. He slips on the escalator and swings slightly, never letting go of the arm that is the size of his body, he slips because the gravity which is collectively pulling us all down isn't quite as strong as the force keeping the child attached to his dad.

 I watch a mother with three slightly older slightly unruly children come towards my little booth.
 The children immediately start raiding the 3D glasses as I helplessly watch, words of protest from their mother go unheard until she uses the sentence of doom:"I think we should go home"
 halting them in their tiny tracks, 
they hastily put my glasses back in their little basket and temporarily behave themselves. 

I do my duty of tearing their tickets in half and unleash them on their designated theater. 

As the mother crosses my threshold the children take off again like a pack of rabid wolves that had spotted a crippled buffalo.

 At first it seems they are just running around wildly but I start to notice a pattern.
 the invisible force doesn't let them get too far.

 They orbit their mother like little moons around a planet.
A couple holding hands catches my eye,

 she says something and smiles, 

he laughs.

 A warmth radiates off of them like a sun. the invisible force 
where they hold hands,
like a hydrogen reaction
 in the heart of a star.

 A happiness that seems to make the movie hall just a little bit brighter. 
a brightness that bounces off of me
 like moonlight, 
I feel like I should be sad,
 but I catch myself smiling. 

I can't help but think how a collapsed sun turns into a black hole,

 a thing that warps space and time,
 an invisible force that pulls me from my tiny booth to a far away place 
and a long time ago,
 where the combination of gravity and love break a cheap Ikea bed and create a memory that shines bright, long after the star has died.

And until I do.

I tear another ticket and ponder if there is anything more beautiful than starlight.

Reflections

In my apartment bathroom I am confronted by 3 reflections of myself.

One is the face I've known and watched transform for almost 25 years, familiar.

I know thousands of expressions and goofy faces on this canvas of skin, yet there is another mirror on the wall to my right that reflects the first mirror, splitting it and reversing it, I'm confronted by the face that the rest of the world sees, my right arm is on the left side of that image and the scar on my left cheek is on the right.

This face seems less familiar and ironically more worn, yet the most jarring thing about it is that it doesn't look me in the eye.

if I met this person on the street I might casually pass him by.

Just another face in a world of millions, making me feel an odd normalcy that was strangely lacking.




I'm on the sky train from JFK airport to Jamaica station.

I stand near the back and look out to the train car behind us, I can see through to the people there but the window is at an angle that reflects the sky above us, making it look like they are standing among the clouds,

this reflects back to me drifting in a sky of my mind, melancholy daydreams float by pushed by thoughts.

My mind is clouded by old storms and vapor trails of memories that slice through my brain.

Echoing my rather bumpy flight to NY.

Yet serenity returns to my skies as I observe the Angels in transit.




I'm in a bathroom in Manhattan.

Two mirrors face each other and I stand in the middle, watching a line of young men curve off into a green blotchy eternity.

The same face in a world of millions and a million worlds. I feel crowded.

And slightly less alone.

Seasoning.

Bitterness has become a habit.

It's not even true bitterness, more of an afterthought.

Like a man with no faith absentmindedly kissing the mezuzah as he enters his home. A thing of routine. The type of action that becomes so ingrained in day to day life that it's no longer a conscious decision, but a reflex, like breathing or walking or wanting to hug Elijah wood.

A thing so commonplace that it is no longer relevant, and so it becomes just another forgotten moment, not necessary to the archive we call memory, piled on the mound of other forgotten moments that obscures our view of the past and makes us look back in shock and wonder where all our time went.

I sprinkle bitterness on my life the way people add salt to their meal before tasting it, And yet my bitterness is bland.

I lay in bed and look back on my past regrets and no longer feel a sting, but an incessant poking to the side of the head. I'm not just sick of bitterness, I am bored of it, and Perhaps being bored is a sign of healing, perhaps I have literally spent enough of my time to move on from bitterness.


after all, Time is the best medicine that eventually kills you.