On a Rooftop in Williamsburg // Sarisha Kurup

the new year started in February on a night that was
​gold champagne bubbling over
lace frost on warm skin
some lighter-than-air dream
I searched for you on a rooftop in Williamsburg and
I wasn’t sure if I’d survive the night or the year but
position and time don’t matter in the universe of things it’s all going too fast anyway just--
smoke on someone’s living room couch
half-strangers in open windows
the way cannabis haze fits into the hollows of cheekbones
the city lying before us tantalizing like
a lover about to leave--
all too fast
one last time
 
sometimes it starts before it begins we
meet before I step outside the door and
on those days I wonder if entropy led us together or apart are we colliding
by chance just the debris of some other broken thing
you’ve always liked broken things
science doesn’t give you any answers, he said once
I don’t have any either
 
there’s nothing but ice in February only
rooftop parties for people who can’t find
love in anything but thick gold bubbly
 
how can you always turn physics into some
kind of love story how does motion become emotion how does
velocity become a lover lost how
does time become everything you didn’t have?
time is just an axis on a graph a concept in
an old textbook from his colleges days don’t
make things more than they are don’t
make people more than they deserve to be we
build cathedrals for lovers who can fill our space but
not our time
 
The axis spins and I’m not sure if it’s me or you who
went too fast but they sat me down and told me
it was only the champagne


Sarisha Kurup