Because I don’t want to forget anymore.
I want to remember.
I want to feel it.
Again.
Headlights pass by as I walk,
every beam bright and brief,
like strangers undressing my face.
I drop my head,
kicking half-dead leaves against the curb?—
burnt-yellow, blood-red, sidewalk-brown.
It’s mid-sixties,
wind sweeping down alleyways.
I'm wearing my vintage trench,
a thin black turtleneck,
my faded graydon't-fuck-with-mejeans.
If I look dangerous, I’ll stop feeling weak.
It’s a thirty minute walk to Type.
On the way, another set of footsteps sync with mine for too long.
I tell myself it’s paranoia, or city shit.
Hunter’s locked up.
He can’t follow me anymore.
I turn to be sure, but he's not there.
I stop in the park anyway
to smoke a cigarette. Then another.
Because men don’t fuck with a woman holding a cigarette.
Ten minutes later,
I'm turning the street corner, and?—
There it is?—
same dumb building,
same haunted brick?—
