It all happened there, a place as insignificant as dust motes in a sunbeam. It all happened there, a photocopy of an image of a faint dream. There, we saw kingdoms raised and crumble into pits of sand. There, the breath of life and shudder of death. The beginning and the end.
I met Ann in some shitty bar on Fifth that doesn’t exist anymore. She was lonely, I was hopeful and we stumbled into sex and friendship, failure and friction. Ten years later I was cheating, she was crying, I was screaming, she was dying and I was feeling like a bigger asshole for staying when I wanted to leave and leaving when I wanted to stay. I held her hand as we heard the news and wished some other guy had taken her home. Then she looks up at me and I forget it all for a while.