I'll Have the Usual

I let go of the city 

that belonged to someone else's fear. 

Tremé wasn't safe, he said, 

and I believed him 

the way I believed 

a lot of things 

that turned out to be 

his limitations, 

not mine.

He couldn't see it. 

Some people can't. 

You can tell a lot about a man 

by what makes him uncomfortable.

I went back last fall, alone, 

for my birthday, 

and it felt like a different city. 

Because it was. 

Two clicks to the left. 

Remove dead weight. 

There's the recipe.

I was so close to seeing it. 

I was always so close.

I let go of the wife. 

The mother. 

The Metairie adjacency. 

The architecture 

of a life 

I was building toward 

in someone else's blueprint.

I was so close to being right. 

I was always so close.

I let go of the idea 

that good things 

should feel 

purely good. 

They don't. 

They arrive 

braided with 

everything 

they cost you.

A map of a grocery store 

made me cry today 

because all I ever wanted 

was to walk in somewhere 

and have a person's face change 

because I walked in.

Little Meredith at the Waffle House 

already knew.

I'll have the usual.

I'm getting there. 

I'm getting there. 

I'm getting there.