Meticulous debates surround a summer bonfire to discuss proper marshmallow etiquette.
Doughy white cubes burst into flames then are quickly blackened and extinguished through giggling breath.
The sous-chef practices a different approach; strategically avoid the flames’ direct lick and slowly rotate into a golden-brown treat.
Loyalists to the fire-craft sacrifice proximity to the inferno to perfect gooey ecstasy.
 
Stray embers pirouette towards the sky, mimicking the fireflies’ pulsing greeting to the cicadas in the trees, and the crickets in the grass, and the frogs in the pond.
With baited breath, a dirty glass jar waits to fulfill its destiny of reincarnation from “Knott’s Farm Strawberry Preservative” to illuminated insect death-chamber.
Swirling dresses and swirling clouds of smoke pair with toes tickled by soft blades of grass.
 
A boy capitalizes on an excruciatingly long hour, in increments of a centimeter per minute, to nonchalantly inch towards his crush.
She fidgets with the loose thread protruding from the course tribal blanket they are both sitting on.
Her once-white Keds, now rimmed in a nature green stain, speak to days of bike rides with no handlebars, popsicle overdoses, and first kisses in neighborhood tree-houses.
 
The fire wanes soft as nature’s circadian rhythm slips into pace for the night.
The blanket is folded and hands with sticky fingers throw sticks with sticky ends back into the forest to lay where they were picked.

A dirty glass jar takes on its new purpose.
And the Keds get dirtier.

The current largest love affair of my life remains, strongly and vehemently, the love affair I share with New York City. As it remains – an accumulation of many nights - this is where I stand.

A self-romanticized stroll, accompanied by musical commentary as melancholy as your mood,

You catch the gaze of a stranger wearing dirtied Chuck Taylor’s and note that this is the last time your eyes will meet.   

Soberly thoughtful, you sit on a rusting park bench, watching tourists’ cameras hang out of taxicabs.

Inquiring pigeons select the bread-holding-homeless man over the finance mogul with oxfords as slick as his hair.

Clasped hands swing back and forth as a couple with cuffed jeans wade their bare feet in the cold fountain water.

They talk about that time they went to that concert and did that drug and that thing in that bathroom.

A group of too many dogs, tethered to a woman with too many bags, prance by, scaring the pigeon detectives.

One dog bends down to lick a dark mark on the cement – a shadow of a young girl’s expelled chewing-gum.

Catty corner boasts a café that serves smashed avocado to girls with large social media followings.

They sit with oversized hats, in metal chairs, discussing fashion and locations exclusively below 14th street, Manhattan.

A waiter with ear gauges, who performs drag on Sunday nights, clears a table filled with half-empty mimosas.

You contemplate the group, and the group beside them, and the group on the fire escape above.

They all coexist in your world, but you all coexisting in New York’s.

Simultaneously stealing your energy and gifting you energy, the city doesn’t stop to allow pause. 

You are allotted the blessings of ever-twirling opinions, youthful fervor, and charismatic hopefulness.

Your tax remains a lonesome, wandering range of days and people who are constantly searching for what they are to themselves.

The buzz, the pulse, the vibration - leaves you with something. 

You’re not quite sure, but maybe you’ll figure it out on your next stroll.