NYC Longings

I Guess the Lord Must Be in New York City*

NY over Labor Day weekend

I see myself stretched out on your grave.
Convince me that I'm not going backward in time;
convince me that I won't be welcomed like a daughter.
Convince me that airplanes don't do time-travel.
That I can't just step into one of these pictures hanging in my cubicle.
Go on, convince me. Yeah, good luck with that.


I want to go & take a million pictures of the past,
just wander the neighborhood taking pictures of somebody else's life-gone-by.
Crazy? Sane? I don't care,
I just want to stop hurting,

want to stop feeling so empty.
(And everyone knows, a million pictures will do that. My God, just think how many words they'd be worth!)

I've had to start writing my name
& the date
on a post-it note, & wearing it on my wrist
to remind me who I am, & when.

The alarm clock doesn't tell me when it gets me up in the morning.
The calendar means nothing.
And I don't know that woman in the mirror, so I can't ask her.
If I ride the Cyclone all day, will it be the same?
A trip to the moon on dragonfly's wings?

Is going back a huge mistake? I want to find that girl I left behind on the beach,
but I don't think she's there.
I just don't know where else to look.
(Do I need to wear my new picture hat?
Will my memories recognize me with my Soft Dark Brown hair, dressed in my new, unflirty wardrobe?)

I know that the broken pieces can't be mended back to new.
What I don't know is how to go on without those broken things.
I clutch the pieces in my hands,
convince myself they're whole.

(I don't know anything. I keep thinking that, & thinking that.
I don't know anything. Tell me what you're talking about.
I don't know anything.)

If I stand in the surf, will I hear the voice of God again?
If I stand there alone in my pink dress,
will I be able to keep from letting it drag me away?


*Harry Nillson