I’ve never lived no place like this before.

I wrote this on some stickies on the twenty-first floor, when it was only me at the front and Manuela in the back. I was surprised on my third day when somebody told me in the make shift kitchen, hovering over the one button instant coffee machine, that she wasn’t friendly or kind or even good with a sponge. I find that hard to believe and when she pushes her cart at night, I stop shuffling my papers and we talk. Back and forth, it’s mostly about nothing or the construction downstairs but sometimes, like on Fridays, we talk about our plans and once she asked me where I got my scarf.

I brought them home two weeks ago but they’ve been lying by the books on the printer by the really dusty window ledge and now they’re all crumpled up and I have to strain my eyes to read the fading pencil marks and messy scratch. At the time, I thought I’d stick them in an envelope and mail it back but I never got around- which truth be told, it’s probably for the best because it’s all written half handedly and now, even I couldn’t tell you.

That morning, he threw his arm around me and grinning like a boy he took my cup, swallowed and twisted up his lips in disgust, said my tea had gone tasteless, cold. Still the village and I don’t mind things like this because the seasons keep passing, the clocks keep changing and just today there were leaves wet, stuck to my boots. I grabbed a stick from a pile by the station and began to flick the thin, limp foliage from my shoes. The scrapper snapped and I used my fingers to peel away the rest before I walked down the first flight. Still, I can’t remember little things like how to get home from west fourth and where the closest mailbox is and neither one of us knows anything about anything or even the right questions to ask so in a effort to clean the ledge, I stuck them in a book and dropped them down the shoot.

I’ve just never lived no place like this before, never been done like this before. I keep bending for pennies, never knowing which side means luck so each time I find one I pretend it’s the right one, no matter what. But I swear to you and I’m not just saying this, the sidewalk sparkles on Lexington and I wonder if they do that for the fancy hotels uptown or to keep us from remembering that we can’t see the sun. First thing when I go back down, I’m gonna ask that steeple on 3rd before the clock tower if they saw it today. And then I’m gonna stay and stay and stay until I can’t stay no more.