Love In The Time of Manhattan

I love Manhattan at four in the morning, when the night has only the music of taxicabs and town cars. That period of time on the cusp of one day ending and a new one beginning – where the energy in the air is dense and palpable. The streets are dark and the pavements cold while women and children lay asleep, safe in their beds. Drunkards wallow half-conscious on barstools and twenty-somethings frolic in and out of doorways, alleyways, and streets feeling awake and alive and anxious with the possibilities of the evening.

I love being one of those twenty-somethings. especially with you. We meet in a bar but you’re hardly a stranger. An old friend who fell in love with New York a long time ago, just like me. Our hands are almost touching when the night begins – the tension between us, hesitant and awkward. We’re unsure of what’s allowed and what’s not. Our bodies stand rigid and separate. The taste of the chilled sweet liquor in our hands has yet to leave our glasses and melt away on our tongues. Soon that magical hour hits and it’s as if a veil has been lifted. Suddenly, everything’s clearer.