1.

I’m told that college is the best time in a young person’s life. I imagine myself

collecting chicken-flavored ramen to afford iced cocktails at dingy, crowded bars

where I’ll mingle with fellow co-eds. Weekends will be spent watching football from

the student section, swept up in the ephemeral pageantry that will end with caps and

gowns and alma mater pride. Questions of “where did you go to school?” will be

answered by a faded banner above a cubicle—a prescriptive narrative that both thrills

and terrifies me. Still, I’m hopeful. Maybe youth will deliver on the promise of my best

life.

2.

I meet a poet who works at the bar with me and attends the same university. He

seems capable of fulfilling my desires and seduces me with subtle gestures—a coy

smile, found gifts like a single feather earring left behind by his tables. I dismiss his

advances until we meet at a different bar outside of work. In a tipsy haze, I tell him that

my dismissals are flirtatious and he asks for my number. A week later, he makes his

move.

3.

I don’t think about the future. I’m content in the glow of invincible youth, living moment

to moment, where my actions don’t have consequences. I haven’t dated enough for

heartbreak to linger into debilitating ache, and when I look at my examples of love—

my parents, their divorce—I know that nothing lasts forever.

4.

It’s night, and the poet invites me to his apartment. I sit on his couch and watch him as

he moves from the couch to a stool, to a chair, back to the couch. His movements are

dizzying. I don’t want to chase him, so I dismiss myself, using my dog as an excuse. A

week later, he invites me back over during the day.

5.

I collect pithy quotes on the internet like Expectation is the root of all heartache, and

Out of clutter, find simplicity. Pinterest mantras that I read like philosophy. Google is

my oracle; except I never know which questions to ask.

6.

The poet and I are walking along the golf course that is connected to his apartment

complex. He throws a frisbee out in front of us and runs to catch it. As he does this, I

run after him and spring onto his back where he grabs me under my thighs and twirls

me in circles. Romance buzzes in my chest as my arms wrap tighter with each spin. I

don’t want to let go, but I know I will have to. When we get back to his apartment, I tell

him that I have to go, that I made plans. He says, “Do what you have to do.”

7.

I drink alcohol for the first time in high school. I drink a Bud Light that I think is

disgusting, but am told that it is an acquired taste, so I continue. In college, I operate

under a similar assumption that anything distasteful is an acquired taste, so I drink to

depart from myself. The more I drink, the more invincible I feel. I’m not overrun by

overthinking.

8.

The poet invites me on a drive. He tells me we are going to the greenhouse. I meet him

at his apartment, and he drives us in his silver Acura to an abandoned lot. Scattered

across the dead grass is an ironing board, a wooden wheelbarrow, a shopping cart,

and a bookshelf. The bookshelf seems fortuitous, so we load it into the back of his

Acura and drive back to his apartment where he shows me his bedroom.

“I got this from the greenhouse,” he says, opening a whitewashed cupboard that he

has mounted to the wall. He tells me he had to replace the glass as he pulls an orange

pill bottle stuffed with marijuana florets and begins breaking the buds apart into a

joint.

“Here,” he says passing me the joint, granting me the first hit. I light the end and

pause, allowing the herb to numb my senses, paralyzed by the intoxication. I pass it

back to him; he pinches it between his thumb and forefinger and holds it to the side as

he leans in to kiss me.

9.

I tell my therapist that I think I worry too much. He tells me that my openness is a gift,

but what he doesn’t tell me is that vulnerability is the shadow of transparency, waiting

to catch me off guard.

10.

The poet and I both have the night off work, so he invites me to meet him and his

roommate on Main Street. I like seeing his black and white photo when he calls. When

I arrive, he is outside smoking a cigarette. He flicks the cigarette and motions for me to

follow him and his roommate up a narrow stairwell into a dark apartment on the top

floor. Crowds of people are collected in corners, overflowing into the dining and living

area where a band is setting up. Christmas lights and a distant flickering lamp

illuminate the apartment as the poet’s roommate moves to the couch and fits himself

between friends while the two of us step over cords to electric amplifiers and settle

onto the floor. When the music starts, the poet’s hand finds my knee. I slide my palm

underneath his and our fingers lace together.

11.

I start reading love poems and look for answers in the work of modernist poets like W.

H. Auden. I memorize ‘The More Loving One’.

How should we like it were stars to burn

With a passion for us we could not return?

If equal affection cannot be,

Let the more loving one be me.

12.

The poet tells me I’m different. He’s standing beside the bed looking down at me. “I

get bored easily,” he says as he leans down to kiss my forehead. “I’m not bored of

you.” As he says this, I feel different. I never want to leave his apartment. I want to

spend every hour with him in his bed, entangled in his sheets.

13.

After college, I move to New York. In a bookstore, I buy a copy of Adam Gopnik’s ‘At

The Strangers’ Gate’ because I like the cover which depicts a young woman in a

gossamer gown, leaning over to kiss a man wearing a suit. As I read, I draw parallels

between the author’s move to New York and my own. When I finish, I place the book

on the bookshelf the poet and I retrieved from the greenhouse seven years ago.

14.

The poet smokes pot every day. Some days, I smoke with him. The more we smoke,

the more my perception of time changes. Time does not exist; clocks exist. I am

merely living in an encapsulated moment, plucked from infinity. This realization, and

the realization of my own insignificance, elicits dread. I take another drag.

15.

It’s raining and I’m riding home in a cab when I see a couple kissing under an umbrella

at the corner of 77th and Central Park East. The guy’s arms are wrapped around the

woman’s waist while she holds the umbrella above them. Her foot pops like a scene in

a movie and for the first time, I think I may be in love with New York.

16.

The poet meets me at work as my shift is ending. He brings me a pot of daisies that I

place on the floor behind the passenger seat of my car as he rides shotgun. We drive

to Hobby Lobby so that he can frame an article about marijuana that he read in the

University paper. We walk the aisles like children attending a birthday party. He finds a

rubber cupcake and presents it to me, both his palms facing up. I accept, marveling at

its dimensions before placing it under a glass cake stand. As I look at the cupcake

enclosed in the glass dome, it reminds me of the rose in Beauty and the Beast. I think

about Belle and her race against time; she doesn’t want the petals to fall.

I forget about the pot of daisies in my car for days. When I finally find them, every

single bud has been decapitated by the passenger seat rolling back and forth, each

stem completely severed.

17.

My first year in New York, I try to blend in. I give tourists wrong directions because I

don’t want to let on that I don’t know where I am going. I get off the train and walk for

blocks, only to make an about-face after realizing I’ve been walking in the

wrong direction.

18.

I ask the poet to come with me to Texas. A friend and I want to attend Reggae Fest in

Austin, so I make plans to stop through Houston where my family lives. The poet is

acting distant—moody, he hasn’t packed. I tell him that he doesn’t have to come, but I

know that he will have a good time if he does. He quickly throws clothes in a duffle bag

and we leave.

Before the drive, I neglect to replace my windshield wipers. It’s dark outside, and as

we cross the Texas state line from Oklahoma, rain begins to pour down on us. My

wipers are on full speed, yet water continues to flush against the glass. I watch the

rubber blade, detached from its track, drag in slow motion, while the plastic moves

furiously back and forth. The poet offers to drive, but the idea has me tightening my

grip. I tell him I’ll continue until we reach Dallas, where we can stop and wait out the

rain.

19.

I move to New York without a job. Within weeks, I receive my first temp assignment, a

six-month contract with a prestigious nonprofit. The recruiter looks at my resume,

sees my degree and my previous sales experience, holds my face in her hands and

tells me, “You will never have to struggle.”

20.

The poet and I are sitting at the bar of an oak-laden pub in Dallas' West End. Outside,

the rain has slowed to a sprinkle, and now that I have a couple of beers in me, I feel

comfortable letting the poet drive the remaining three and a half hours.

When we make it to my older brother’s apartment in Houston, I read text message

instructions off my phone to find the key my brother has left for us to use while he is

out of town. As I put the key in the lock, the poet sweeps me in his arms and carries

me to the bed where we have sex. The next morning, I tear the sheets off the bed and

throw them in the wash before my brother returns.

21.

It’s morning and I am walking to the subway on my way to work. I see a man and

woman on the street outside my building kissing. The woman is wearing a polka dot

dress and her hair is unbrushed and matted. They pull away from each other as the

man hails a cab. As the cab pulls up, I look over my shoulder and see the young

woman, wide-eyed, while the man leans in for one last kiss before sending her off. In

front of me, there’s a thong littered next to an empty liquor bottle, used and then

discarded. It makes me love New York a little less.

22.

The poet and I drive from Houston to Austin to meet my friend and her boyfriend at our

hotel where the four of us play beer pong in our room before heading out to bars on

Sixth Street.

After a few hours stumbling along Sixth, my friend and her boyfriend decide to catch a

cab back to the hotel. The poet and I stay behind to look for late-night pizza. There is

an old man reading tarot cards next to the window counter where the pizza is served

and without asking, I sit. The poet takes a seat beside me as the old man flips over

three cards: Ten of Cups, The Lovers, and The Tower, an all-black card that depicts

people falling from a castle after a lightning strike. The old man stares at the cards for

a moment. Nervously, before he can speak, I interject with my own reading. I say that

there is the potential for love, but that it is not there yet. The old man rubs his chin and

tells me that my interpretation is interesting.

23.

I walk to work from the D train station in Herald Square and pass the Empire State

Building on my way. On my first day, a woman from Staten Island gives me cupcakes.

There are four people who work in the small office. I am the fifth. The woman from

Staten Island and I take walks on our lunch break. We walk around Kips Bay and

Murray Hill. She talks to everyone, telling them to, “have a happy!” She says each

moment is a gift, and that gratitude is never overrated.

24.

I assume the poet and I will take a cab back to the hotel like my friend and her

boyfriend. Instead, he hitches us a ride with a guy wearing a backward Jack Skellington

hat. I feel unnerved in the backseat by myself. When we make it back to our hotel, I

instantly fall asleep.

When I wake the next morning, the poet is sleeping next to me. I nudge him, hoping to

seduce him with morning sex, but he doesn’t budge. Instead, he takes a deep sigh and

rolls to the other side with his back facing me.

25.

I think about my parents and how they have obviously lived longer than I have. I think

about the events that have happened to them in their lives, how they divorced and

became completely different people over the years. It makes me doubt the durability

of love.

26.

The poet tells me that he went to the hotel pool after we got back to the room because

I was sleeping. He says that there was a group of girls from a bachelorette party and

that one of the girls was coming on to him. He says that he could have slept with her,

but he didn’t. I pick up one of his button-down shirts in response and start dressing

myself. He says that I look good in his clothes.

27.

There’s a scene in Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet,’ when Hamlet talks to his courtiers

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. He tells them that Denmark is a prison, to which

Rosencrantz says, “We think not so, my lord” and Hamlet replies, “Why, then ‘tis none

to you; for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so...” I think of this

scene reenacted in the 2000 postmodern adaptation starring Ethan Hawke. In the

movie, the three characters are drinking Carlsberg beer, giddily falling on each other in

the corner of a green-lit bar. I think of that night the poet and I were on the floor in that

apartment, lit only by the glow of Christmas lights and what it means to see and be

seen in the dark.

28.

The poet and I are lying in his bed, staring up at the Edison bulbs strung across his

ceiling.

“I don’t know if I know how to be in a relationship,” I tell him.

“You should try and be in a relationship with me,” he replies.

“Forever?” I ask.

“Forever is the reward,” he says. “Happiness is the goal.”

The next day, he sends me a relationship request on Facebook.

29.

I’m sitting on a bench in Barnes & Nobel, leafing through a literary magazine. I flip to a

piece titled, “And So On” by a pseudonymous writer who goes by the name, Lynn

Davis. In her piece, Lynn talks about “the guy with all the answers.” She says the guy

with all the answers once got kicked out of an Asian buffet for standing by the sushi

bar while high, reading Kurt Vonnegut, eating each piece of sushi as it was brought

out. She refers to Vonnegut’s use of the phrase “and so on” from his novel ‘Breakfast

of Champions’, saying that he writes this to acknowledge that literature lies. Books

end, but life goes on.

30.

The poet starts spending time with a girl from Nevada who works at the bar with us. He

calls her Vegas. I watch him wind a towel used to clean the tables and release it so

that it snaps her on the ass. She looks at him with amused irritation.

31.

I go hiking outside of the city with a couple of friends. We take the train from Grand

Central and get off at Breakneck Ridge. The hike is difficult and requires some

bouldering. When we make it to the top overlooking the edge, I gaze at the foliage

along the Hudson Valley and think about Lynn and her guy with all the answers.

“‘Make it last,’ he says to her. ‘You only get your first view once.’”

32.

The poet’s car is in the shop, so I let him borrow my car for the night while I’m at work.

He meets me around 3 a.m. as I am finishing my shift and returns my keys. When I get

in my car, I notice that the passenger seat is rolled forward, as if someone had been

sitting in the back, which makes me wonder, who was sitting up front?

33.

My second year in New York, I tell myself to remember where I am from. My area code

may give away my roots, but I walk among the other nameless faces and blend in with

ease.

34.

The poet has the night off work and visits the bar during my shift. He orders drinks for

him and his roommate, and I see that Vegas has the night off as well. The poet acts as

if he is trying to set me up with his roommate, saying things like, “you two should talk.”

I see him and Vegas slip away to the bar across the street. In a panic, I excuse myself

to the bathroom where I sit in a stall and download a Magic 8 Ball app. It loads and I

shake my phone feverishly, asking my question:

Is there anything going on between Vegas and my boyfriend?

Cannot predict now... I shake again.

My sources say no.

This answer satisfies and I return to my shift.

35.

I start taking aerial silks classes in Brooklyn. I climb the fabric, placing one foot over

the other, inching my way to the top and learn to loop the fabric around my ankles in a

way that will catch me as I fall. As I practice these learned maneuvers, I let go of my

grip and allow myself to plunge until I am dangling from my feet, each time trusting

that the fabric will catch me.

36.

When the poet makes his way back over from the bar across the street, I tell him, “I

guess this means we’re through.”

He looks at me as if I have just set a puppy on fire.

“But we feel the same,” he says.

37.

My friend is visiting me in New York a few days after my 29th birthday. We go to Peter

Luger in Brooklyn and while waiting for our table, another friend hands me a tiny zip

lock bag with a floret of marijuana sealed inside. We buy zigzags at a nearby bodega

and roll a couple of joints on a random stoop in Williamsburg. After eating, we agree

that it is the best meal we’ve ever had.

Before catching the train back to Manhattan, we buy cheesecakes to-go and then eat

them on a rooftop in Hell’s Kitchen. We drink red wine on a blanket and take in the

glowing lights of the H&M building, and The New Year’s Eve Ball. For the second time, I

think I may be in love with New York.

38.

The poet burns me a playlist onto a CD after I tell him that we’re through. I play the CD

in my car as I leave work. Track 17 is a Dub Step song called, Hold On by Rusko. I

remember he played the music video the first night I went to his apartment, and many

nights thereafter. I feel a sadness for the nostalgia the song elicits and think of all the

infinite possibilities. From this timeline, I am removed. The potential for love,

destroyed by lightning strike.

39.

I read Charles Baxter’s ‘The Feast of Love’ and finish the book feeling as though I

finally understand what the word means. I underline my favorite lines.

As the poet says, all happy couples are alike, it's the unhappy ones who create the

stories. I'm no longer a story. Happiness has made me fade into real life.

40.

It’s New Years Eve in New York, and I’m thinking about the poet, my poet. My friend is

having a party, but I decide that it is too cold to leave my apartment and listen to a

cover of Electric Feel alone in my bathtub. I feel compelled to search for the poet on

Instagram and when I find his account, I see that he’s married; not to Vegas, but like

Vegas, this girl is also blonde. There is a photo of her looking away from the camera as

she hangs over a cliff, presumably on their honeymoon. The location tag says:

Jamaica. They have a Dalmatian.

I see his most recent post is from the day before, a photo of the Manhattan skyline,

taken from the Brooklyn Bridge. There is a green glow emanating from the streetlamp

on the bridge. I think of that line from Hamlet, there is nothing either good or bad, but

thinking makes it so.

He captions the photo:

I don’t mind putting my name on the work I’ve done this year.. it’s been wild..

#brooklynbridge #newyork #runnersofinstagram #travelgram #newyear

41.

It has been wild... And still, I continue to underestimate the capacity in which life can

surprise. I’m no longer a story. Happiness has made me fade into real life.