Thursday, January 12, 2017

A Slice and a Dream


I sometimes stop at this cheesy Italian fast food joint around the corner from my subway stop in Manhattan because I can eat a meatball and take a piss just before I hop on the train.

The joint is always filled with tourists who haven't discovered the treasure of cheap pizza from places that sell it for $2.50 for two slices and a can of soda. You can't go wrong with a dollar slice, but they don't know that.

Often the joint is filled with high school choruses on class trips, and suddenly I'm back in tenth grade on a trip to see "La Cage Aux Folles" in a city that I didn't understand but always knew I wanted to be.

And I can feel how untouchable everything seems, even though by now I have touched it all.

And I can feel how overwhelming everything seems, because sometimes I still feel overwhelmed.

And I remember what dreaming feels like, because dreaming was all a poor kid from Pennsylvania could do when I was their age.

And then I remember what reaching a dream feels like because here I am in Midtown Manhattan and I'm on my way home from work after some cheap eats in a place where some people are just beginning to dream.

And on my way home I watch the city lights flicker in the distance from the subway window and wonder how many of those are the lights of dreams still being born and, even more, how many of them are mine.