Broken

New York, 2019

Her bright red sweater is draped over the chair. She’s left the desk, and, with it, her open notebooks. “Coming, is love, dad?” is written on the first line. “Dad, is love coming?” follows. A stack of thick books, and a brown Calvin Klein bag against their worn covers. In her absence, the letters lift and lilt, lending themselves to flux. How deep the Father’s love for us…But every punctuation, an uncertainty; every question, a cry. Do you love me? 

On the adjacent library wall hang five portraits of five white men, two glaring toward me, the other three glancing inattentively. How is it that I feel the hard leather against my tailbone, the slick film of dirt on the wooden desk, the ache in my feet from walking the city’s avenues, yet feel no presence here? How can a jittery heart beat so voraciously, yet feel sunken so deep that shadows hide its very outline?Is it love? Love is not coming.

“Love, what are you talking about?”, she has written. “I don’t understand. Please love, speak clearly…”. The man across from me bites the nails of one hand while the other holds his fantasy book, his thumb holding his place. He’s on chapter two. His eyes too close to mine to properly meet. The woman returns; the man leaves. She is somebody’s child; he must be, too. But this library, on this avenue, in this city, is an orphanage. Every question on this street, a desire; every answer, a defence. I don’t understand, love. 

I am caught between him and her. One leaves, the other arrives, but my constant is a prolonged departure. She continues to write in her notebook, and I try to ground myself in my body. Follow your breath and return to your body, I was told. The thoughts, the rumination, the constructed reality come and go like ticker-tape. Who gave her the golden bangle on her wrist? Who holds our hand when we need human embrace? Love?