— Sally Mann
dandelion dreams,
dandelion schemes,
dandelion screams.
blowing about,
shout,
with lungs of a lifetime.
The importance of being amorphous…
on purpose.
Sever?
Never.
The sum of just one.
No holes, just wholeness.
I flew.
Phew.
I flew.
I caught wind and claimed air.
Without a care,
with but a dare.
Wingspan of the world.
Today I am reminded of this idea of New York eating one alive. As I walked through Times Square this morning, I saw a homeless man collapsed with EMT on the TKTS stairs. The imagery came at me all at once. Here I was, between 7th Ave and Broadway in the mouth of New York, seeing someone getting swallowed. The TKTS stairs are a solid red, but in this moment it looked as if he had been metaphorically bleeding profusely. Here was a man, perhaps in a delicate state, perhaps in a lonely state, and everyone barely glimpses at such a scene.
I wondered what happened. How long had he been on those stairs? Did he sleep there last night? Did he get there this morning? How did he get there? How do people on the streets survive? Many times I have felt like I was drowning, getting eaten alive, and being devoured by New York, but in that moment, I realized all those times I thought I was at the lips of the beast, I always had a place to come home to and I was nowhere near becoming a meal.
The feeling. The feeling for stealing.
Dream stealing. Dream stealing the feeling.
In minor chords feeling major.
In bed, in my head, in red.
But upon wake, I am lead.
The pool.
The only place that can contain me in a way where I never feel like too much or too little. It is where I can float, where I can rise, without worrying about the overflow- the displaced water, the spillage. It is where no matter how I feel upon entering, within the water, I am strong. I am powerful. I am void of doubt, void of fears, and full of bliss. I breathe rhythmically and the water gathers on my skin, hugs my body, and I am in full meditation. The hum of the water is like honey.
I am buzzing for more.
An encore.
