I just remembered
when I was 19
and studying Keats
and working at the Tasti D-Lite
meeting New Yorkers, discovering what that meant
and its clashes with my elite institution
which I also loved
and everything was so close together
I felt so overburdened with my lonely self
but so happy in the city's shadow that I could live in the lonely, too

Vaguely on the verge of tears, I recognized my privilege in the way that you can only
when you have hours to reflect on the spinning world around you, the different colors and city blocks eating through the fuzz of remnant adolescence

And there was no one to run through all the scenarios, the theories of the world, the stupid thing I ate for breakfast, with, so it all just channeled through and sometimes I'd feel this huge heavy need to write and an explosion of release from that act, no other release being at hand

I love that world, and I'm grateful for it.

I want to gain some of that self-awareness, awakeness, attuneness, attentiveness back.  Without all the loneliness. A silly girl lost in the big city, learning from myself.