Your Prescence in the Streets of Soho is like a Ghost

Your presence in the streets of Soho is like a ghost,

From the subway station at Spring Street,

To the cafe where I recently purchased a glass of iced tea — you once emailed me a photo of the place with vinyl records in the window.

Even the location of your apartment where you no longer live.

I only visited you there once, but I will always remember everything about it.

From the fear and anticipation I felt upon seeing you, and what I had hoped would happen once we were alone,

To the sneaker store across the street that you hated because it represented the worst type of gentrification,

To the art galleries I went into to kill time since I had arrived early.

To the proximity to some of my old downtown haunts from early days in the city,

From Fanelli’s cafe, to the original location of Dean & Deluca, which is no longer there.

And a bit further north to the Angelica movie theater where I saw many films when I first moved here in the 90s.

Coincidentally, I’m in your old neighborhood often now and it seems like a strange occurrence and poorly timed like all of our interactions.

Because, once I decided I wanted you, you were on your way out of the city, away from everything I have loved about living here.

All the energy, and the grit, and edge was no longer what you wanted and you had a plan for country life so you could escape it, and one that definitely did not include me.

Everything I wanted of you was of a you that no longer existed,

A much younger you who lived and walked the downtown streets inspired by the people and places you saw.

But I’m still enmeshed in city life.

I still like to walk and explore every nook and cranny of the grid and put myself in those places, away from my own uptown neighborhood, so that I feel I’ve gotten every little sip of the cup that is NYC.

I’m still here and I don’t want to leave.

Granted, you never did ask me to come along, And so I am left with your ghost who once lived the life I want now.

But that is how it has always been with us — I want a you that no longer exists.

A younger you that’s closer to the me that is and always has been.

Last time I was on your street I walked past the door to the apartment you may still own,

And I took a photo of the numbers on the buzzer so I’d have a momento of that long lost visit almost four years ago.

There are no names on it, and so your ghost haunts me still.