By Daniel Bliss
I bought a house trying to force a home,
the roof caved in.
Got a lock to keep out the danger
I was warned would come knocking.
I was left lonely.
I focused on the depths of my wallet,
never learned how to spend
the paychecks I broke myself for.
Found the first ticket on the Keystone Line
direct from Harrisburg to Penn Station,
a few blocks from Time Square.
February was holding onto the city
but I finally spent everything I made
living on the Upper East Side
trying my best to hide
the fresh five stitch scar, above my left eye,
torn open last year, by the last town,
under the darkest Ray Bans SoHo had to offer.
Met you in the aisles of the Strand,
between Plath and Kerouac, doing our best
not to be cliches, despite leather jackets
not suitable for the borough’s blistering wind.
Went back to your borrowed apartment,
between Chelsea and NYU,
admitting to every month of my 20s,
worried how they were ending.
Over Blondie melodies,
you swore I could say I lived life right
if, by the end, I knew myself better
than who I was when the decade began
Daniel is a world-traveling poet originally from Anchorage, Alaska. Currently, he is based in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan as part of the writing MFA program at the University of Saskatchewan. His poems often focus on relationship to place.
Hot Pot Magazine 