They say anxiety is built-up energy, so I keep moving. Past men selling street food from plastic carts, past women laughing too loudly on fire escapes, past prayers spoken in languages I don’t know but feel anyway. I move with the city, through it, inside of it.
I want it all—the noise, the hunger, the overlapping lives—to take what’s broken inside of me and remind me that broken isn’t quite the same as the dreadful feeling of empty.
I want to know you. And you. And him. And her. The vendor counting change with tired hands, the kid with headphones too big for his head, the elder waiting for the light to change, the woman walking her poodle, the man in the trench coat who smells like cigarettes and rain. I want their minds to brush against mine, to collide, to leave something behind.
