the hotel chelsea

She was never an ‘it’ girl but she was always that girl—your friendly, unidentified hotel ghost, leaving tails of perfume in the elevator behind her. If her shoes are from last season no one cares, her eyes are all on you and you’re pinned by her gaze like a charmed snake.

At the end of the night you can find her with her socks rolled down, licking duck sauce from her fingers after she leaves the remnants of her face on the fluffy white washcloths.

I don’t know at exactly what point I became the kind of girl that mothers warned their daughters about—somewhere in between coloring in the scuffs on my shoes with a black sharpie and trying my first oyster at a french restaurant just above Houston.

Hers is a captivating fantasy, all bedroom eyes and cobblestone streets, window boxes full of secrets and bright pink petunias. the map of Manhattan is covered in dreams and soft, fleshy hearts, just as many firsts as there are lasts. every time i go into the city i am struck by what has changed, and what remains the same. a decade later there are so many places with memories imprinted onto them, a faint sense of all that I have been as I walk dutifully across Canal street, eyeing a fake bag I will always talk myself out of purchasing.

Nothing is longer than a night, filled with promise and the taste of vodka-soaked olives, punctuated by the sweets of a kiss you knew you wanted, but forgot how to ask for.