Butterflies spark the second my foot hits the sidewalk. I step out of the Lyft, still warmed by a sweet conversation with the driver, almost always an immigrant, almost always kind. I’m ready for the night to swallow me whole. I turn down an unassuming street in Bushwick, past the gyro spot and the coffee shop. Later, that coffee shop will flick on its lights as we spill out of the alley, blinking into sharp daylight, laughing too loud, smoke from hand-rolled cigarettes with Turkish tobacco clouding the air as we make our way to the next party. I walk past the line, meeting the doorman’s eyes, my friend now,…

She was confident, successful by cultural standards and full of magnetic energy while living inside a cliché: the life of the party. She was the woman people pegged for ten years younger, her signature introduction, her little party trick that kept on partying. Raving every weekend on barely any sleep, then showing up Monday ready to power through the grind of corporate capitalism, proud of her cranked up capacity. She’d cracked the code and knew how to keep herself looking endlessly alive, moving quick enough to be everywhere (except present) seemingly all at once, shining to impress them in all the ways that counted. But who am I… really? Turns…

It’s not your fault, Dad. Not in the way it would’ve been hers.  If Kim had said it, it would’ve been delivered sharply, meant to steer me back toward whatever version of myself she could tolerate. Your words weren’t like hers, they weren’t used as weapons. I know it drove her crazy to watch you be held in our affection, in your absence, in your flaws, in all the ways she could never live up. More likely it was said as part of the deprecatory rigmarole, the modest little routine you do after someone offers praise, or when you point out somebody else’s brilliance, simultaneously exempting yourself from the category. …