I am alone when I wake up. But this is not unusual. I am always alone when I wake. Moving to New York has not changed that as I thought it might. My world has become smaller since I got here. At least from my bed. I can see the four walls that enclose me. A door leads to narrow stairs leading to the street. It would be easy for someone to get in.

In New York I am as superfluous as the kitchen in my apartment. This city does not need one more person. I could traipse up seventh avenue in my new skirt between the taxi cabs and one could flatten me to the pavement and that is one less person in New York. I am a rounding error in a six-month population statistic.
 

You brought me here. That’s incorrect. I brought myself here. I let myself be brought here. My hopes and dreams brought me here. They quickly abandoned me in pursuit of unstained oxygen and a life of self-worth. I stayed to awake alone to walls and a door and a kitchen filled with nothing. But then I go to work.

I do not walk up the middle of seventh avenue to be smeared with yellow in death. I stick to the side, yet still in my new skirt, letting the rhythm of my steps lull my mind. I get coffee and I am awake again. Still alone, but closer. First up, first there. Last to leave, last to sleep. The elevator pings and it begins again. The encompassment.

You, you, you, you, you, you, you. And me.

You control me. You say hi to me. You look at me. You leave me. You come back! (It was just for coffee.) You tell me what to do. You see me, you pay me, you excite me, you teach me, you love me, you do not love me, and then we go to lunch. You admonish me? I tease you. I trust you. You know that. I love you. You know that. And then it’s June. It’s been a year.

I leave you and you let me. I hold on and you don’t.

It’s at the airport that I do this. You are there, not me. I cornered you at the gate so you cannot escape by flitting to an exit and yelling back nothing excuses. You are stuck. That’s when I call. I ring, you answer. I am going. I am leaving. I am leaving you and New York. You hate me. You scream at me. You apologise to the lady in front of you in the queue. That’s all you can do because I’m calling you from beyond security and the line is about to move. Good-bye.

Your thoughts come back to you with the recirculated air and you breathe it in. It’s dusty. This far above it should be light and clear. Should you stick your head out of the window? Feel the cloud brush against your cheek? What you would do to be outside, flying alongside. Falling. Running through the sky as though the land would catch you in a green embrace. It will not and so you type out a message to send to me instead.

This is what it said:
Dear Me,
I really truly love you, but also I really truly don’t.
Love, You.

I leave. You return and I am gone. Four weeks later, four walls less. I wake up alone again, but my kitchen has tea in it. I make a move. Go south and arrive in the heat. It chokes me. My breath is not my breath. It is hot water I gulp for life. Inside is ice and I cannot find the button for the boiler. I melt. I cry. You are not here. You are why I left. You are why I came. You could care less. You’re in New York. Living between the streets and sheets and shots and sands.

In my shame I awake, alone. I kicked out temporary comfort at 3am. He left grumbling from my bed and I finished myself off as the door shut behind him. He will do. He did. He is done. He does not recur, like you in my half-waking mind. I lay in the aftermath of false love today, tomorrow and next year while basking in what I knew. You happened to me like a piercing through an ear, touching it to make sure it is still there. Fingering the scar tissue, irritating the wound, and I am inflamed again and again.

I leave. I head to the island where I can breathe.

Today I am awake. I am alone and looking at the sea. The waves crash my thoughts and you are there. Then you recede.