When I say I want to live in a tiny apartment in Manhattan with potted bonsai trees and a black and white ikea sofa.

When I say I want to live in a tiny apartment in

Manhattan with potted bonsai trees and a

black and white ikea sofa

I mean to say that I want people to mistake

my life for novella. I say a novella

because my flicker of existence does not

need a novel. I want people to hear

the last sentence and ask if there was ever anything more–

I want them to peel frantically through

the flyleaf pages looking for another piece of punctuation.

When I say “New York” I mean I want to live

at the threshold of myself

I don’t want to apologize

for my callouses or how I hold

my hands tight together as if

each step I take is some sort of prayer– I want

to wake up each morning unfurling like

crimson red autumn leaves and tossing

myself to drift between worn suede boots

and sneakers jogging in place at stop lights.

I want to smile at so many people

because I can’t stop each one to say

how damn beautiful they are that day

even if they are walking too fast in

shiny black shoes to see me

smiling at them. Even if they

look down at a green shopping cart

full of coats that were never new to them

because they think I want to talk to them.

I’m too much in awe to speak most of the time

so I only think of what I would say.

When I say “City” I mean I want to live in the heels

of wide-eyed three-year-olds

who wonder if skyscrapers are

as big as a T-Rex was and nibble at the corners

of bagels like a pigeon missing a toe.

When I say I want to live as a poet in Manhattan

I mean I love how the city lets me fade into

nothing but my own words.

I don’t have to be Sarah

I can be a girl who is stirring thoughts

with a thick wooden spoon

on a gas stove.

I’m carrying a secret between the jostle of the crowds.

My smile means I love you but it also means

I get to write about you– I get to imagine you

when I find a cafe to stop

and water color myself into the corner

to describe you in my little notebook

with the navy blue cover.

When I say I want to move to New York City

I say it because it’s the only way I know how

to say that I want be everything and no one.

I want to be slippers

and unworn sequin high-heels.

I want to be yellow stop lights

and chipped black nail polish.

I want to be coffee filters

and holes in the elbows of shirt sleeves.

I want to live in so much awe at everything

that my blood turns to mint tea

and I my pulse to trumpets

accompanied by mandolin.