Words On A Wire
Chelsea

I never go to New York City these days. I avoid it I am clever in my lies to the contacts that want to meet in that Mecca. Excuses pile upon one another like one of the city's towers. I know I can't avoid it forever. Too much goes on there. I can't continue to avoid the brownstone that seems to be the axis mundi of this strange universe of conspiracy I find myself in. I can't refuse to go there much longer. They are getting suspicious and I have no good explanation. No explanation to why I leave plane tickets with names that aren't mine on the hard plastic seats of the airport lounges. No reasons except the hard pounding of my heart that occurs whenever I think of going to New York. When I think of going to Chelsea.

I know I could try to avoid that small section of the city but at the same time I would be drawn there.

After they took her I went to Chelsea.

There is something about the buildings in Chelsea that just kills me. I thought after, maybe in a month or two when things were different.

Things never became different

Is anything different these days.

I wonder if I loved her. The things I do to the people I love shouldn't be allowed.

I thought when they brought her back that I could have New York back, that I could have my small apartment in Chelsea back. The place I went after they took her. The place I grieved for her.

The place I wanted to take her. There is something about the buildings in Chelsea that kills me.

I see her now. Through telephoto lenses and television monitors and even through these dim viewers I can tell something is different. The light in her eyes is gone. She is careful with that light or she was careful. Somehow she did not guard it carefully enough and it slipped away or maybe it was taken.

I never saw her in that double bed that rests under the big window in Chelsea. I never saw the pale light of the city stream into her hair. I never saw the light in her eyes in Chelsea except in my dreams. Dreams that started on the plane that took me away from Washington. Dreams that dogged every step that I took in New York. The ones that made me stop and stare at every redheaded woman in Chelsea and wonder.

When I left the dreams changed. I dream I am New York City these days and redheaded angels are floating down from all the buildings.

Something about redheaded angels that just kills me.

I keep hoping it will get easier. That I will be able to get on a plane and step into the crowded streets of New York where there are no redheaded angels who used to have light in their eyes. I never had light in my eyes anyway. I keep hoping that I will be able to go back to Chelsea and look out and see just buildings that I no longer search for the missing light.

I keep hoping things will be different.

Is anything different these days.

I never go to New York City these days.