№17

Solaro’s patio, late afternoon

I don’t remember where we came from, before here, just a street in the half-sun and the wind was blowing my coat open and slipping between the threads of my shirt. It’s cold, but not cold enough to be winter, just some terrible in-between that makes you shelter in the sun.

Solaro’s is near Bleecker street, a yellow-façaded Italian restaurant with a limited menu. Racked up nearby is a long strip of Citi bikes, and every so often someone comes by to take or return, there was a group of three in cropped pants and colorful tops.

We came here from a few blocks away, we, my father and brother and I, parked by the Shake Shack test kitchen and walked through the crowded outpouring of bar and cafe patrons that pack the sidewalks and streets. A gaggle of young creatives, and me, all living out the same Simon and Garfunkel fantasy here in the west village at dusk. Whenever I sit among them I feel as if I’m stepping into a part, inhabiting a doll sat in this chair, some beaten-sneaker clad Call Me By Your Name appropriation. I take out my book on The Iliad, I take out my pen, my notebook, leaving them strewn across the tabletop with my mask and sunglasses, as if to show the passers-by why I’m interesting, why I’m valuable. It’s my bad habit. I’m so afraid, so terrified, of all these young and beautiful tattooed people, I’m afraid that my eyes aren’t bright enough, my skin isn’t glossy enough, my hair isn’t rumpled enough, and they’ll know that I’m paper. I’m okay with being fragile, appearing fragile, but I can’t be both fragile and boring.

The man, presumably the owner of Solaro’s, looked at me with crinkled eyes when I ordered the gnocchi. I felt as if I’d gotten into the club, I’d made it to him. I made the right choice, it was a code word, I’m civilized. My throat unstuck itself for a minute.

It’s laughable, how much time I spend on my face and clothes, attempting to not look insecure. I’m wildly insecure. I’m insecure about everything.

But they fetishize that sort of thing now. I’m sure I can make some money off of it. Authenticity. Authenticity. authenticity. It makes me want to choke. I feel like I’m dying all the time and I see the nouveau-suits paint and chip brick to replicate that feeling, to make me feel less alone so I’ll drop money into the hands of their beautiful cashier and feel like I’m a part of something and I do it. These coffee shops with artificial graffiti, or real graffiti, carved by poets with nothing to say but some stainless steel straw affirmation of love for an unknown musette. I am them, I feel so hollow for being them. I feel ashamed and I feel gray.

I’m a poser and I know it.

I think about how to be, I’m told it’s about commitment to The Art over perception.

I have acid reflux and when I sleep too horizontally I wake up with a burnt esophagus.

In At Eternity’s Gate, Van Gogh (Willem Dafoe) says that his art is for people who aren’t alive yet, so it’s okay if nobody likes it. I’m very violent, but no one sees, there’s nobody to see but my cannoli, I see so much blood in the things that I write, and I try to drown myself in it, just scream and scream and scream and scream and catch as much of it as I can onto the paper.

I’ve spent ages with a burnt esophagus, chugging that carmine-colored chalky throat medication and going to class. I still ordered the gnocchi with red sauce at Solaro’s. Vinegars, pickles, and red sauces. Too much for someone with a burnt esophagus. I eat and eat and eat and eat and eat and eat and eat. Ravenous. Voracious. Devourer.

A devourer plagued by the insecurity of being seen devouring. But ever wanting to appear hungry, but never devouring.