Everyone’s always busy. You live in Queens, I live in Brooklyn. We’re shouting over the band or the subway or the jukebox or the other conversations. We let it go and say goodbye on the sidewalk, late and tired. There’s always next weekend, there’s always next time.
I wish I could buy you all the drinks in the world, but I’m broke. I wish I’d told you what I really meant, instead of hoping you knew. I wonder when the bonds will break, now that the ties that kept us in each other’s orbit have stretched so far. This is what happens to people who leave, I know, I’ve seen it happen to those who left before me. I know the odds are against us: life is long, and it’s easy to turn into someone you used to know.
I never meant New York to be about other people. It was meant to be about colder, more quantifiable things. I didn’t leave with much that can be quantified. I didn’t leave with the plan and the ambition and the achievements I thought I’d have.