Stars

I live in an attic under a slate grey roof that skims the sky of Paris with its fingertips
And the hallway leading to my front door is peeling and the pipes snake like
Creatures out of the damp-smelling walls
And my sink is plugged and my fridge is sparsely furnished with three eggs, tomato-basil pesto, butter, avocados, oranges, lentils, and milk
And my apartment is cold in the morning when the sun wakes me with its stabbing brightness
And the construction workers down the street pound away at the resistant pavement with power drills and sledgehammers
And my stone floor is unforgiving to bare feet out of my shower in the middle of my kitchen
Yes, my apartment is fourteen square meters and I brush my teeth in the kitchen sink
And for some reason the savings I gathered last year living in my parents' house have all dissipated into the expensive Parisian night and I am getting by but just barely
And yes it's scary and lonely sometimes and full of bursting disappointment and sometimes I feel failure like I have yet to accomplish anything at all
But sometimes I look out my window at the densely packed rooftops poking the sky with their attic windows and I gaze at the orange glow of the streetlights and
I have achieved this
It's not perfect, nor is anything worth having, because nothing real is perfect and what good is an empty, perfected fantasy?
All this is real and flawed and scary and exhilarating
I am here and I am breathing and maybe my cold little attic is just a pocket in the Parisian sky
Maybe the lifeblood of the stars I see when I'm falling asleep that seem close enough to touch is dripping in through my cracked window and infiltrating my ears with the kind of stuff that births creation
Maybe I'm close enough to hear the clouds rub together in a symphony of almost-rain that swells the pregnant sky with threats of a deluge
Maybe I'm becoming less scared of downpours
Because all this is temporary and soon my attic will be a memory and all these nights will be strung together like bottle corks and all the faces and midnight bottles of wine and laughter reflected in the shimmering canals will all feel like dreams in an attic almost touching the stars and the moon and we will all feel like a perfected fantasy
All this is beautiful and I'm trying to hold as much beautiful as I can between my trembling fingertips as I beg to touch the stars
And we talk of possibility like we are dancing on slate grey rooftops to the sound of the clouds
And for a moment we are the rulers of this city up here in our attic kingdoms
For a moment we are more than overdrafts and feeling scared and feeling empty
For a moment we are full of sky