the magic in my real

Last night around eleven pm, after fidgeting with various semi-functioning alarm clocks and nervously tracing subway routes on the metro map, I found myself on the verge of sleep. The lights were off, the air was cool, and I had finally managed to set my worries aside for the morning. Yet, just as I found myself pulling in the edges of blankets, my throat began to itch. Slightly, but persistently, the tickle walked up and down the sides of my esophagus, rubbing its feathery feet just ever so lightly on the tender top of my digestive tract.

I shoved off the covers and set my feet down on the padded beige of the carpet. Still completely unfamiliar with my surroundings, I shuffled forward towards my estimation of the hall. My hands were out in front of me, and I couldn’t see much except for the glow of the million other lives that shone in the night through highrise windows. As I slowly, carefully felt my way in the dark for the bend into the kitchenette, a smidge of movement caught my eye. Turning quickly towards the spread of large glass window, I blinked. There, floating slowly past the 38th floor, was a knot of yellow balloons. Quietly, it rose through the night, up into the height of the stars. I filled a glass with water from the tap, sipped a few sips, and went to bed.

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Today was a day of days – the bread for a summer sandwich (If only because it marks the most official of the many beginnings). The things that filled it: four free hardcover books, one lovely (if slightly fluster inducing lunch), the sound of packing tape being unrolled, 1001 introductions that left me with a desert dry mouth and aching cheeks, a sad story about a father, the B train, a zoo of a grocery store, ginger carrot soup, diamonds in windows, shoe that caused a bloody heel, a mini subway map that I hid in the palm of my hand so as not to appear touristy, an endless city.

If I could plan my dreams (or at least the first scenes of them,) I should like my next one to begin with the baking of bagels and swing of a baseball bat in central park. The mention of which reminds me: I intend to find the center of central.