She watches the shadows consume the street, the
cars parked down 23rd eaten, one by one…doorways
and stoops disappearing in small bites, her stoop;
looking down 5 steps to the street, minutes away
from consumption, she sits holding knees against chest.

Today is no different from yesterday she thinks, it
is on a closed loop, repeating, a mobius strip, a twisted
inverted figure eight…she passes this spot a billion times
and foresees a billion more, each grinding off a small bit
of her dreams, her future….her life.

Darkness owns the street now as it did before as it will
again until the flip of the coin, the tilt of the earth, when the
precariousness of vanity drives her movements toward
retrospect and discovery, toward knowing versus
never feeling, never seeing, never…holding.

She has a problem and looking at a midnight street in
Chelsea, the enter of the city’s own vanity, from a point
of view only she can own…the common resolution is null
and void, it doesn’t fit, it’s a different size style season
color and beside…it’s not hers.

Her problem is of expectations and dreams and where
they collide in reality, of believing when believing is the
antithesis of choice, of decision and drama of massive
metaphysics telling telling TELLING her what is, what
isn’t; who is and who won’t.

Every choice is wrong because there is no right, there is
nothing on the other side different from this one, from
”normal” yet the advertising doesn’t lie…bigger better faster
leaner more more more until the frame is filled with want
and true desire is lost in dirty corners.

Sitting on a stoop, 5 steps to Chelsea, when darkness
erases the stain of the day, the trail of tears of fears of
an unforgiving mission to be with someone, to be someone’s…
someone…she waits for an answer unscheduled, untimed and
forever sitting in the shadows

Her problem is not someone, it is the version model type
class edition created without connection, linkage to here and
now…the collusion between wishing and wanting, of expectations
falling short…she wants to know now but doesn’t can’t won’t
is that (bereft of definition), the availability of happiness reaches

certainty.