the answer is ______

i want to be in a band again; there it is again, the thought. i tell it to the only real friend i’ve made since moving here. it comes out choked up, in different parts. i want.. i want.. i wanted to tell him at the seaport. we walked all around town, quite literally. it was perfect at the seaport. you could see the bridges and the ocean and a million lights that were all individual people doing their own thing. and the cars and the trains, they were people too. the waves, the clouds, the light pollution, a singular star fighting it’s way to reach us. people. i feel it deep inside my chest. i want to be… it’s not a bad thing to say. it’s not even a final decision. just another dream to put away with the others. but i don’t say it there, while the waves crash into the dock and the water bugs skitter around us and the big red WELCOME sign looms in the distance. it actually comes out when we’re walking back to union square. i want to be in a band (again). it’s like a confession. my friend says something like, gather yourself up first. but then turns around and says that i should do it. a high sense of purpose fills the air. we’re on a playground watching the stars and he asks me a question. i say, the answer is. the answer is… blank. the answer is, cars. the answer is, a cloud. the answer is, i don’t know. the answer is love, he says. the answer is love.

 i wake up and i think i got fired from my job. suddenly everything is blurry. the world starts collapsing around me. my books implode in on themselves and my clothes catch on fire. my bed turns into shards of glass i can’t pick out of my skin. i am back at the seaport, jumping into the black mess of the water instead of looking at it. except none of that happens. i sit calmly because that’s all my body knows how to do. it’s the one thing. i think about last night. i am the answer. it’s the first thing i think when i wake up. i am the answer. i am the vessel. i am. i try to shake the words off because they don’t sound real. like something i’m forcing myself to say out loud. the answer is, the answer is, the answer is. the answer is, we try and we still don’t get what we want. the answer is, i’m scared. there’s that giant billboard again. last night it said WELCOME. this time it says YOU WERE LOOKING FOR ME ALL ALONG. tomorrow it’ll say I TOLD YOU SO.

i wait for more news from my boss. maybe this was a mistake; maybe somebody touched the wrong button, technology messes up all the time. put these things never work like that. the button is too big. it says FIRE HIM in big bold letters and it is always pressed after 2 weeks. something fucked up inside of me tells me this was the sign, this was the billboard. but that’s stupid. rent still happens, people go on. being in a band is like being in a fucked up toxic relationship. people are older than you and they want you to do things. nobody understands each other. the communication is atrocious. jealousy, cheating, lying. once it ends all you get is stockholm syndrome. you say you’d do it a thousand times over again if you could just, do it. i just wanted someone to shake me back.