You'll Never be Safe in New York

Tonight I was sincere for the first time in a very long time. I laughed sincerely, without self-doubt or pretensions.

I tried to keep my feet steady on the walk home, on the unevenly lit Gramercy streets. On one particular residential alley lined with wet piles of gabrage, a man suddenly jumped from a stoop and began to run. He was running towards me. He was running with abandon. His eyes looked so far ahead he saw no street in the city; he saw only into uncertainty and back into his skull. One foot tirelessly after the other, punching the sidewalk. He ran so fast - I thought he was trying to catch a bus. But as he ran his hands gripped the edges of his collar, nearly pulling his shirt off. I stretched my body up against the wall and leaky black bag to avoid being run over. He ran past. So fast.

Walking again I noticed in stark black and white the body of a woman, standing on a stoop.

"I'll get you - you'll never be safe in New York!" she yelled after the man.

When I was within two feet of her I noticed her body - not white because of the light. She was pale, weighing barely a hundred pounds, her rib cage deeply outlined against her skin, stretching against her skin in some attempt at escape. Her shirt was half off, barely covering her breasts. She sat back down. For a moment, the frailty of her body reminded me of the corpses I've seen. She cradled something in her right arm, in the crook of her right arm. She calmed down, and cradled her arm, as the desperate pounding against the concrete subsided.

I gripped my purse tighter. My steps became lighter. No one is safe in New York.