I miss sinking into a beat-up sofa in a musty coffeeshop, green awning, on the corner of my rental stoop in Park Slope, opening a book. I miss drinking coffee not for the taste but for the feeling it gave me. I miss a summer when I didn’t have a career and couldn’t have predicted this future. I miss that summer when I dragged myself from one hustle to another, and it opened up my ribcages so my heart could feel life life life. I miss not being in a relationship and reading a book about a man loving a woman and that woman’s face was full of women I will never know. I miss sleeping on a mattress on the floor in a room where I can sit on my mattress and touch the walls on either side with extended arms.
I miss walking from neighborhood to neighborhood, moments crashing into one another, and life was new and my twenties kept on going and going. Prospect Heights to Park Slope. Morningside Heights to Upper West Side. Hells Kitchen to Meatpacking to Greenwich to Soho to Noho to LES. I miss coming back to an empty room.
Empty is full of possibilities.