Y-Town or Hot Air Balloon Central

The train that grinds past my apartment here roars four times, just like at camp. There's a comfort in that, one that I've only found in melted street tar under summer sun, community bathrooms and car soap. Two longs, one short, one long. Nights like these, I open my windows at about 10, just as the temperature drops below 75. As I lay here surrounded by pillows and basking in the glow my LED screen, I'm trying (fruitlessly) to decipher the chorus of insects below my window. Last school year, the seventh floor didn't lend itself to insect lullaby, nor did the constant hum of cars bellowing down 17th Street. I prefer the crickets. I prefer the cicadas. I prefer the dense cacophony slowly melding into what feels like silence, only purer.

High Ceilings and Higher Windows

I've reached the age where people will soon start thinking I've got problems if I'm not falling in or out of love with someone. People are so thoughtless. Falling in and out of love is not the problem. I fall in love with every person I meet every day. I have no deficit of love.

I'm just... waiting.

There's something beautiful and timeless about the freedom of being alone. And there's a certain peace that comes from being in charge of what comes next. And I need to wait. I don't know who will be strong enough to carry the other side of my burden's yoke. I don't know who will sell years of his life to give back to the world somewhere that I'm not sure of yet. I don't know who will follow my sequin-shoe path.

But someday I will.

How to be Alone