Photo by Wojtek Witkowski on Unsplash
Every single time
I make tea
I leave the steaming mug
on the wicker basket that is
also my bedside table
and it sits there and
sits until
it is lukewarm at best
and I made it because
I wanted something hot
but I drink down the
cold chamomile tea
like I am thirsty.
In New York it feels like
we are always missing out
on something
bigger
and better
but also, smaller
and more poignant,
searing and
beautiful.
Like when I wandered
the streets of the east village
when I was eighteen
with a boy who I never
kissed but
I wanted to
and we drank coffee in a diner
at 11:49pm
before we sat on a stoop
and I thought
my whole life would look like this
balancing on the edge of
something always and brimming with
anticipation
and endless.
Like the stretch of Manhattan
in summer
at night
but then it turned out
to be sometimes
this feeling of inhaling the
whole world and
all the lights that stay on
at night
twinkling in the lining
of my lungs.
But sometimes too
this feeling of shrinking down
to a tiny room
with a window looking out at a wall
and an endless facetime call to
someplace I can’t touch.
I didn’t think growing up
would mean staring at
so many tiny screens.
I thought it would be
expansive like the universe
and ant hills.
I thought I could inhale
everything bright
and wander through the city forever
and never get tired
or feel
like there was something
I was supposed to do.
I thought I would
know
what would make me feel
the most alive
and I thought
I would always want life over
anything
else
but it turns out I also
want a handmade quilt
and art on the walls
and just one light on in the house
when I come
home
and I don’t know
if I grew up
and expanded or if
I shrunk down
like the tiny screens
that keep
getting smaller.
Grace Benninghoff is a graduate student at Columbia Journalism School in New York. When she is not reporting, she enjoys writing poetry and fiction. This is her first piece of published poetry.