A perfect Chicago night, weather-wise. The frozen wind crashing into my face, free of judgment, free of violence and harm.  it made me feel alive and happy and free and un-alone for the first time since i saw you last, 3 years ago on the S train.

i wanted to embrace the wind as closely as one can embrace without suffocating it. i wanted to let it know it was welcome here in my heart. i wanted this night to stay there forever.

but the frozen wind has no conception of attachment, the way some people do. by “some people,” i am, of course, referring to me. it is I who is the attaching one here… the one who longs for frozen time, who insists upon it, undeterred.