Thursdays, I am most alone.

Somewhere between Sundays and now, the disconnect happens. The separation jars in the little ways. A pound of swiss cheese, yes please. Thank you; and I am alone with myself in the deli as strangers and sellers make their transactions and conversations.

A hesitant stranger behind me on the line tells me that I am pretty, and I smile a thank you, and nod a slight curtsy. I wait for my cheese, which is being wrapped in its fine wax paper, and think about going home to my sheets, which are dark blue & some storm grey. The stranger begins conversation. I carry it to the declination of his line & number. I walk home. The day is beautiful, but it only feels like clouds. This is Sunday. I eat. I don't remember what.

Monday begins promising. There is humor. There is catch up conversation. There is some anger and fights about things I do not want to deal with. My brother sings in a dark-suited choir, and I watch Stabat Mater from the balcony seats of a dark hall. We discuss family & money on the way home. I feed him a sandwich and make myself a quesadilla with last night's leftovers. After he leaves, I go sit in front of a radiator. I have a glass of wine. My roommates do a lot of talking. We all talk, too much; fruitless and impotently, but it's in poor taste to point it out.

The day after is a blur of recap and typing. I have fragments of dreams, and tea & coffee. I put things that smell good, in jars, & drown them in vodka, and then it is already night. My roommate comes home doused in all the highest of liquid spirits. We talk about trips to Asia. He wants to send me on a solo vacation next January, and eats his burgers with hot sauce while excitedly bravado-ing about family and jobs and dinner plans.

Wednesday, the air is lovely. Brooklyn is lovely. I spend the evening in an art studio, but I make nothing except for uninspired pencil marks and and imperfect cuts on paper. My friend that I accompanied, asks personal questions about my exes and my former relationships. I think about the types of olive oil, between floral and near almond, and cardamoms, green in a jar. I think about very dry sake in my cup. I think about the lovely cut of fish, and the sweet & soy tofu skin, and the warm rice. I think about the springtime color of pickled ginger, in the perfectly shallow dish of seasoned sauce. I think about washing my hands, and I do. I think about the bars we pass, the lights, and the beers of twentysomething youth, and some conversation a little more electric and heartfelt. The train takes too long to come. My friend and her co-worker talk. I watch the lights at the ends of the tunnel, for flicker & change, & maybe some new beauty, the way I always have, my entire life, whenever I am on a platform caught in waiting. The city is cold again. I walk home. Strangers and their glances & gazes; I keep moving. I strip down when I am home. I empty the infusions; put them away.

Grey. I woke. The sound of wind without leaves, & thoughts; the chambers in me are empty. Today I am only with myself; something about solitude & the quiet. I think about emptying chambers in hollow spaces. I think about showers in the dark. I think about how coffee makes me too jittery, so I don't want it; the bitterness makes me sick, and the caffeine in tea makes me different, so I don't want it, and I don't want much, and I don't know what I want, except other spaces. Empty is a feeling. The world is lit. I think of how when the night comes, I will feel better. I think about the city at night, and the streets, and the concrete beneath me, and orange streetlamps, and the safety in my soul on these little streets, and all these dark buildings that hold them.