It’s hard to meet someone serious at college. Everyone’s busy,
self-centeredly grinding away at their dreams. So much so that
people tell you to not even try (especially as a freshman).

I was mostly at ease with myself—as a freshman. I had an
excellent skincare routine—it was downright luxuriant, and it
kept me going, through that romantically baren and lonely year.

But we humans hope—we buy lotto tickets to dream on—though we know the awful math. We Gen Z’s seem to have our own unique brand of loneliness, born of covid and Internet-age experience.

My romantic expectations, sophomore year, were low—ok, unmeasurable.

Looking around was depressing. There were socially awkward STEM majors, jocks, frat men (sure the world’s laid-out just for them) and ‘CSOM Bros" (business majors more interested in parlaying my Grandmère’s money than me) and the elusive, emotionally reserved, ‘regular guys.’

But the unexpected can happen. We all know how crowded campus coffee shops are—the students move in and out in tides as noisy as the real, salty ocean. And then there you were, a rumpled, 25-year-old doctoral student—from another world—asking to share my table.

The loudest thing in that room was your sense of stillness. You seemed to be a new and distinct species, and as we talked, you seemed to somehow smooth my anxious edges. After a few meets, the thought, ‘I really like this guy,’ seemed to have its own gravity.

We somehow managed to thread the ‘too busy to care’ dynamic, and as time went by, you helped me channel my absurd, fiery, pastel-painted, first-love, early-twenty girlhood heat into something longer lasting, deep and authentic. Congratulations! It’s been two years.

Separating now, would be like removing the salt from the sea.
.
.
Songs for this:
Playing House by Kudu
So Much Mine by The Story
After Last Night by The Revlons

I don't want to go to sleep.
Tomorrow whets its work day claws,
my chore doubling faults reach ankle deep–
I am a ****** up, tongue-tied government sheep;
in capital letters
MY MOUTH DRIFTS TO SLEEP
as we were taught to be silent
in those capitalist dreams.
as we were taught
not to
speak

© fey (17/01/25)

an existential question so deep,
it can be answered only by
enumerating a million tiny
words:

in the quiet crackling of a spine & unsticking page noise of an opening of a brand new book, a first of firsts, a thrill for free in any bookstore that is yours now, uniquely and forever

in the upward stroking of a smooth
cheek, by your smallest finger, upon
a newborn’s face, your youngest child’s
newborn, and a rare moment of unadulterated love tinged by
immortality

the smile you retrieve when scratching
that old beloved pet’s face, in the exact
spot only you two know and a long time ago
discovered


patrolling the Promenade, espying an
elderly couple so bundled against the
city’s Arctic cold freeze, that movement nearly impossible, nonetheless holding gloved hands in a manner and a moment describable only as inseparable

letting someone jump in front of you,
at the supermarket or the bank, when
they have only one item to purchase, and you, a dozen or so, but the most important item you really really urgent need you have is to prove to yourself that it is possible to buy more time
for a human

crossing with an elegant eldery woman
across the wilds of First Ave., who insists
she needs no help (ha!), but doing it anyway
by complimenting her candy striped cane,
and being rewarded with a “stop that, or
I’ll be forced to take you
home!”

searching endlessly for  red kidney beans in olive oil in a health store that has no less than 19 varieties of everything, and an immigrant teenager employee tskes you across a cityscape of aisles, turns, niches and alcoves  to the exact spot and item, and you
smile and weep because the beam of their smile at your pleasure lights up two souls
simultaneously

next, herbed flavored tofu?

making a bank teller laugh (a near impossibility) when depositing a very large
check, and when asked if there is anything
else you need, informing that you would like to withdraw half immediately but only if they have a sufficient quantity of extra large size single dollar bills!

a group of privileged upper east side college seniors eating out at a wonderful Italian neighborhood restaurant, talking loudly about their recent travels abroad, and how crazy it is that one cannot get a cappuccino in Italy(!) except at breakfast
(oh, the in-justice)

here I stop, because not a lot, of my reasons
to be brought forth are concluded, but only because  you have started
to feel an urgent need to p-
repare/start your own list, immediately if not sooner to ascertain precisely your own anwer to:
Where
are you
being?

5:48am
NYC
Shabbat, January 18, 2025
18 Tevet, 5785

when all is said and done
and all has been resolved
there is the ease of resolution
no more tears to bawl

all is said and done
all the words were said
all the questions asked
all the pain been bled

now you go on living
get back to your life
pretend that nothing happened
ignore the scars, there was no knife

and when you think you’re able
when at last, you’re back to you
there is the faint remembering
you realise you’ve been lied to

the cuts were self inflicted
that’s what you’ve been told
the boiling water poured on you
had no intention to ever scold

but there was a knife and there was water
unfamiliar knife rack and a kettle
in your home they’re not, mental images
held by hands not yours, unsettle

it doesn’t matter anymore
not relevant the truth was spun
you’re meant to have moved on
when all is said and done

Maybe my heart
was born too small
for the love
it carries...

That's why it
shares it
just to
give itself
breathing
space

bury me alive, and let's just pretend it wasn't suicide
oh, you don't like me, well so do I — there's this ugly version
of myself that I can't deny, so to every girl I date, I always
pray you'll find a better guy

still, I fell in love with the rhythm of your eyes,
cos you always seem to view me as a better guy. to my
surprise, you give me reason to stay alive

but I always tell you not to read too deeply
on some of the things I say. darling I'm only human —
sometimes I make spelling errors, still was it a spell that
you fell in love with me?

      your purpose is love,
                 and I'll protect it with my life.

The broth is thin, the stakes are low,
The bottom’s near, and off we go.
Wax your skis, prepare to slide —
The abyss waits on every side.

But here’s the catch: the tale's the same
In bigger lands with grander names.
The broth turns sour, the rot sets in,
Most drink despair, a bitter sin.

Few will rise, resist the game,
In this grotesque world of shame.


In Russian:

Марионеточные режимы маленьких банановых псевдогосударственных образований

Уровень пониже,
Так как щи пожиже:
Дно всё ближе, ближе —
Навострить лишь лыжи.
Только вот проблема:
В б'ольших та же тема —
Щишки прокисают,
И дерьмо хлебает
Большинство народца.
Мало кто бороться
Может — мир уродцев.