On Collision with the Night.

Mama, I’m sorry.

I went running headfirst into the world without a helmet, groping fistfuls through the long New York nights. I found fairies and fairy dust, mama, and I did it all. The angels were my friends like you told me, mama, but we weren’t written in your scripture. Mama I was scared by the banging, by the knocking at the door so I ran circles round Manhattan and ignored all the warnings pulsating through its monasteries. I studied their stories deeply and drank them like the elixir of a sunken Christ, a man you once prayed to, or prayed for, or prayed from. I drank him. I soaked him up. My heart pumped his poison through the day and I ran great distances with it, mama. I ran through the streets proud to be a sinner. I faced mirrors with the fortitude of one thousand sons, of dozens of men aching with abandon. I turned myself over and folded corners, I flagged passages bright with pontifical warning and threw myself at them, mother, so I’m sorry. I went running with scissors in spite of your pleading, I went sprinting. I skipped right into the moonlight and set us on collision with the night.

Photo by Alexander Popov