You've been here before.

It happens to me on occasion, where I’ve walked past the exact same apartment building that something was chasing me out of in my dream the night before. I look up for a minute at that front bay window and the greying black of the bricks and that same tree. Yes, that same exact tree was in my way last night, right there in the middle of my getaway as I ran in slow motion away from something that made so much more sense before I woke up with a start and thought with a panic "huh?" before I thought "oh," when I realized that nice thing you get to realize when bad things happen to you at night - it was just a dream.

The bad moments are when bad things happen and you’re stuck with that "huh?" moment for far longer than you’d like. You’ve been here before and it stinks worse than that pile of laundry in the corner you keep telling yourself you’ll bring to the Laundromat tomorrow.

Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, you lie to yourself, you’ll have more time.

And then if you’re like me and you’ve come to a state in your mind where you’re starting to forget in the fog of your life what’s real and what’s not, you’ll find yourself staring at a person on the subway the way you do when you think you know them but aren’t confident enough to speak up - and you think yourself: how do I know you?

There’s something about living in a city with so many people that if you find one person you know, if you happen to be in the same section of the same 1 train with this person, you have an obligation as a fellow lonely insignificant New Yorker to speak up, to study their face, to make the connection of: "Oh yeah, you’re Mark, right? I met you at that bar on Rivington like a month ago. You’re friends with my friend Jessica?" And then it’s "oh’s" and "ahh’s" all around as you show everyone around you and prove to yourself that you’re making something of yourself in this huge hole of a place - you know people.

But if you’re like me, you know people, sure, but not a lot of people, and chances are that this random person you’re staring at in the same section of the same 1 train isn’t anyone you’ve ever met before. Plus, you’re thinking to yourself, you’d probably really remember someone who is that cute. You just want to think that you know this person so that you have a reason to talk to them, because everyone knows that no one in New York ever talks to anyone when they don’t have to.

And he’s cute, yes, and you haven’t been on a date since....and it’s more impossible to meet someone here than...and you think to yourself that if this guy just got to know you he’d never want to leave you. He’d realize how lucky he was, how much of a catch you really are. It’s because we all know how great we are, how much potential we have - but in a city full of so many people who don’t talk to each other it’s very easy for no one to ever really get to know anyone at all.

(That, and, it is also a little known fact among all New Yorkers that men of a certain age who are relatively attractive, put together and are wearing a tie that matches his dress shirt (tucked in), and is carrying some form of briefcase (ie: no backpack), and doesn’t have a ring on his finger - is gay).

So he gets off the train at 28th street and you laugh at yourself because you realize how ridiculous you’re becoming - you know very well you didn’t know him at all. Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, you lie to yourself, you’ll get it together. Is it desperation? (some would think so). Is it loneliness? (some would understand), or is it just this city taking it’s toll when all you need is to connect with someone else who doesn’t want your seat on the subway, doesn’t want to get past you on the sidewalk, doesn’t want to get in line before you at Starbucks?

Who knows. Some things don’t make sense whether you’re asleep or awake, and no one knows if their reality will ever catch up with their dreams.

And the subway carries on slow and steady, and so you do because, (huh!?), you think to yourself, you’ve been here before. Oh.