You can't hold it too tight These matters of security You don't have to be wound so tight Smoking on the balcony -Pace is the Trick, Interpol

You can’t hold it too tight For fear of causing a squeal as the last puff of life flurries about, frantic to flicker, free again.

Theses matters of security That twist around me Tangled and tight, pulling all breath And desire to be.

You don’t have to be wound so tight Is what I told you when we fought on the way to the bodega. I talk to the cat inside and buy a pack of Mentos.

Smoking on the balcony is usually where I’ll find you. Apart from the crowd, you appear introspective, a loner. But I know you’re just tuned out, coasting.

One crisp autumn morning I woke up and vaguely remembered how much I needed to forget the past year of my life, to finally do something with the restless energy that had been building inside me, making me wobble between burning it all down and continuing to live another year exactly the same, showing up, doing the things expected of me, monotonously weaving around in my daily life, only to be deeply bewildered by exactly how and why I expected anything to be different without any change in my behavior, by complacency and blindness and lack of taste, of smell.