i mean yes, we're sinking, but the music is exceptional

Return to a brilliant afternoon, early May.  I am still in the city, finals week, and the semester's disregarded philosophy reading is tucked amongst the constant contents of my bag.  I ride the A to 72nd, wander and sit in my perfect patch of Central Park West: a gently slopping hill alongside the lake, greenery and blissful couples passing to and fro in their wedding frocks, photographer galloping alongside.  I pass the hours reading Mill, Marx, Descartes, meet two very sweet, fond-to-frolic chihuahuas, and wait for Julia.  

The Tuesday prior, Julia, my close friend and confidant told me that she was not returning to NYU in the fall.  Days past, moments spent apart from her are on the wane.  Following text prompt, I walk up the path to meet her and buy a strawberry fruit popsicle on the way, as sweet as the day.  We walk a deep path that hugs the lake: thick shrubbery, the rustle of wind through leaves that convinces me we are anywhere but central Manhattan.  I lead her up and onto a rocky plateau that overlooks the lake, the trees, the necks of buildings that rise like industrial gods.  Through my sparse and held breaths, a pass and pass again, I stand barefoot over bare rock in the disappearing sun, whisper as the walkers cross below, and find myself folly to scope.  I scan the view that is, from each angle, as unfamiliar as a face in your extended family portrait.

Philosopher Soren Kierkegaard wrote, "Love, after all, has its priests in its poets, and occasionally one hears a voice that knows how to keep it in shape." Julia and I traverse the park, from our birdsong plateau to the sitar exit at Strawberry Fields, across the honk of 72nd and into the rolling hum of the subway.  I lean into the plastic seat as the train jolts to a start.  I close my eyes and inaudibly hum to unravel the world that passes overhead.