Something Like This

It is late again and dark again. I miss the night. Before my monster fled, we lived in the night, loved in the night. These days the night is filled with television shows, staring at screens, and sleep. No more howling from fire escapes, or New York City cab rides, the West Side highway blurring into streaks of reds and greens and the occasional hurried yellow. No more empty wine glasses and overflowing ashtrays. These days the nights are screens and wandering voices looking for yet more screens.

I think about the eyes scanning these words: lost in screens too but in offices procrastinating, or coffee shops waiting for spring, or lonely bedrooms, on couches on laptops. I see you looking at me. Separated by space and time connected by language. I have left you no choice. Constructing our bridge with words, an unpromising attempt to whisper a voice you may recognize. Hoping you will whisper back, letting me know I am not completely alone.

You tell me that I am honest and that you relate, but then tell me to shut up when I speak. We can’t be everything to everybody. That is obvious, but really we aren’t anything to anybody? Castrated harmonies warbling inaudible, but they once sang. I can’t remember what they said, but they sounded something like this:

Close your eyes….
Can you hear it?
Sing it back to me…
Don’t let the fire in the night burn out.

We are alive…
In this emptiness
aware of each other’s presence
we are one…
Do not be afraid
To understand me.