Between 7th and 9th dwells Saint Marks. I inhale the familiarity of the street. I marvel at the many spectacles of the night: a man crippled by melancholy is curled on S&D’s stoop; Bull’s is packed with intoxicated friends fumbling both their purses and words; all the while, tourists are naively fascinated by sidewalk vendors. As I aimlessly pass from one scene to another,

I catch a glimpse of you.

No street in the city could compete with such a sight. A cigarette is balancing between your fingers as you confer with a stranger. Are you a ghost? A reincarnation? I freeze under the Wine and Liquor awning, inebriated by the illusive vision of a former lover(?). I begin to examine you. I know I have to hear you laugh to see if the sound would prompt my heart to flutter. I wonder if your lips are so rousing I’ll recount how they feel in the pages of my journal. Desperation questions if your skin would feel as delicate as hers and if it would welcome my touch the way she did. I gaze at your eyes reflecting 886’s cheap LED light…how would I know if your eyes transformed into the entrancing hazel hue that hers did when the sun, too, competed for her admiration? But your cigarette butt met the ground, and your hand affectionately reached for the stranger. My inquisition concludes.

You could not be her.

My eyes revert to the disorder that never ceased behind me, and my body retreats towards 2nd Ave, seeking to ignore what had even brought me to Saint Marks in the first place.