you can tell from the way my eyes trace these streets—

i can tell from the way neon spills over your face, we’re 

two bruises on the body of this city, the only ones left 

speaking in tongues. all my other selves and their voices 

that i borrowed are listening 

while we’re making small talk about the shape of 

night and i wonder how many times under these streetlights 

that have taken the watchful place of the trees 

you slip into another version of me. you’re making up stories 

for the shadows as they move against concrete, 

and on the walk home i can feel the old songs that once 

colored my streets pass like trains. everywhere, 

the same rain. once i watched women like me 

from the other side of the street, now i hold my cigarette 

like it’s a verdict. we said we’d leave, we said we’d get clean, we said

we’d grow up but here we are, ordering another round.

remember the rooftop? the bottle of something cheap? 

remember the promise we made just to hear our own voices? 

there are years between now and then, 

but they don’t make a sound when they go. 

only the subway rattling under our feet, a phone screen 

shatters and i’m swallowing time like a bitter confession.

the river bends, a silver nerve threading 

the city’s spine. morning peels back its skin—

windows blinking, raw and open. 

buildings stacked like vertebrae, one 

atop the other, tightly upright. 

somewhere, a door swings wide 

like an unguarded throat. 

asphalt veins thick with urgent motion 

clotting at intersections while somewhere, 

a park inhales. lungs expanding in the quiet 

between sirens, a body remembering itself, 

bearing the weight of time 

on its skin. all that passes through 

its pores. the heart pumping, the mouth 

opening, swallowing 

what it must to survive.

the way you mispronounced my name still 

sits soft as a nipple against my tongue, 

vague words we once said to each other and 

all the dates you touched me scattered 

under the table like pistachio shells, faces 

swollen closed like sts. as i walk back from the supermarket alone, 

a man tries to put a tract in my hand but i tell him i don’t want

jesus in my heart, there’s barely enough room in it for me. 

i want a god standing on morrison and fifth, waving 

from the other end of the crosswalk, mouthing dinner is ready,

i made dumpling soup. when i get to the third floor 

i realize you took the pots and pans. suddenly 

there is enough room in the kitchen 

for all my selves. 

i used to think this was something that would be impossible to live with, 

but here i am, making a new playlist and 

eating grapes.

Rowan Tate is a Romanian creative and curator of beauty. She reads nonfiction nature books, the backs of shampoo bottles, and sometimes minds.