Heat Waves

What I miss most are the simple moments we shared. The moments where nothing exciting was going down but somehow everything I had been looking for was happening all at once. Those were moments where I felt like I could die right then and I’d be okay with it because I got everything I needed out of life. 

We got bagels by Prospect Park in Brooklyn and ate them in the section of the deli that had chairs and napkins. We parked illegally, not giving a fuck whether or not I got a ticket. Well, that’s a lie. He cared. He didn’t want me paying a stupid fine. So he found me a spot that wouldn’t end in the NYPD writing me up instead of solving a legitimate crime. He really was a homie. 

 We ventured into the park after bagels with a dab rig and a whippet canister. The sun is out, it’s warm, the park is full. We plop ourselves down in a beautiful and clean grassy patch where there weren’t too many people around and inhale the nitrous and the weed and I see a cart going through the park with a man selling ice cream. Babe, I want a soda at least. He gives me some cash and I run after the ice cream man after a hit of nitrous. I feel like I’m floating, like I’m bouncing between clouds, like time belongs to me and I can stretch it as far as I want it to go. It’s just me and my friend defying all limitations. The ice cream man doesn’t have soda. We leave and as we laugh while my dumbass stepped right into a pile of mud, I’m reminded of all the ways in which one can feel alive. 

At some point in the time where the weather tricked us into thinking it was summer, at the point where I tricked myself into thinking we had mutual romantic love despite his very clear and direct explanation that he viewed me as a super close friend, we head to a Halal food cart by Astoria Park in my car. We eat while he complains about the small portions. A better late night spot, I guess, he says. I’ll take you another time when we’re wasted. Time. All we had was time. We finish the food and drive by a fire hydrant that’s spewing water like a car wash. I drive right through it and laugh like we’re kids playing in the sprinklers. You’re absurd, he says, while smiling so big. We find a place to park that he approves of right by the park and lay down in the backseat of my car. For a while there in those early party girl summer days I had all the seats down and put a bunch of floor cushions in the back so I could relax in comfort when I needed to rest on long drives. He was the only one I’ve met who truly understood the car bed and loved it just as much as I do. The sun is shining so bright and he looks so cute while grinding up the weed that for one of the very few times in my life I don’t feel the need to fill the space with words or music or stimulation of any kind. The space we shared was full enough. 

We lay down on the car bed and put all the windows down while we smoke a joint. We barely say a word to each other for what feels like hours. I think we both knew that if we did talk it would ruin the moment. We soaked up every magical feeling that Astoria has to offer then we decide it’s time to move on so I drive us back to Manhattan while he takes a nap in the car bed. I get super lost and didn’t’t care. I had never felt so taken care of, so valued, so seen. I had nothing to prove and no one around me who was conscious of my actions, so I felt safe to be myself. 

I’m all out of order now because I don’t want to talk about the most recent memories. Let me hang onto the ones that made me believe in love. The one on the walkway by Sutton Place on the East River sticks out. We had been holed partying the entire weekend and decided to stretch our legs and go on an adventure. We stopped in a deli for napkins to blow our nose and Modelos- my favorite. We stand quietly admiring the city across the river. We hold onto each other without saying anything. My heart shattered into a million pieces at that moment. I keep holding on anyways. 

Not much dialogue going on here. All the things that were said in the early hours of the morning, in between a set at a venue in Brooklyn, while sitting underneath a fountain at a music festival, while sitting in my car bed, are between me and him. 

Of course, I probably won’t remember these moments with such vivid detail years and years from now, although I wish that I could. All that I’ll remember is that at a few moments in the time that I claimed for us I was so free and so vulnerable and so willing to get my heart broken that I opened up to the only person I knew who was willing to get stoned with me while laying in my car bed. He understood things about me, about passion and direction and drive, about balance and stability and limits- all things that I couldn’t seem to figure out while he was around that he tried so hard to teach me. I’ll never meet someone who’s like him. He’ll never meet someone who’s like me. All we have is those summer nights. I hope I find what I’m looking for. He’ll be really proud of me when I do.