Above

All day I’ve been working, with the antimusic of the city at my ears, and now I’m tired and doubtful. Looking for a landing place, hoping when I get there it’ll be warm and soft. At least there’s home, and this is the end of the day so I raise myself and say my till-tomorrows and transit.

              The city channels your body as it wants; it streams you up and down and around, all the time promising space to be yourself, space to be yourself. Then I’m narrowing and closing and there’s the door with my last name in biro by the bell.

              I throw my bag down in the place I throw it. Heat water and fill a cup without putting the light on. I sit in the me-dent of previous sittings, take a cushion and hold it against myself. I sit with my doubt. The vertigo of not-knowing keeps my eyes open.

              Your eyes are closed, going inward, into the glow of the glory that drives you. The hyphenated layers of yourself. Though the city tells you every day that you’re not at home, your camera says no, here I am, here we are; this is my light.

              I sit all night tonight, for some reason, staring in the rickety mirror of what I see through the glass. All the lit-up window squares, the stories beckoning. Come on over. But it’s an invitation to risk. All you have to do is pack yourself in and come down, honey. Come down and see what’s up. Promising a landing place, warm and soft if your money’s good.

              But you are already at home, and you owe the city nothing. All the lit-up window squares, not enough to blunt the stars.