charles r. morse

Molecules collide, burst apart. Water vapor clamors at the lip of a pot as it begs to escape. Of all the states of matter, gases have the highest level of disorder; life is chemical, not personal.

My best friends disperse to the far reaches of the globe because that is where their lives take them. Grace in London with the man she met at Oxford, Hana producing cunty rap out of her bedroom in Atwater Village, Lauren finding her bluesy voice in Austin, Raquel building the rest of her Dodger blue life in her hometown. I cried when each of them left New York, mourning late nights at now-shuttered Brooklyn bars and days at Sephora perusing preventative anti-aging skincare. There is grief in scattering, but opportunity too. These days, I fly across the world to visit their new local happy hour dive and appreciate the ways in which they are thriving like a repotted plant that now has room for its roots to grow. The only constant about time is that it passes.

Everyone asks me if I’ll ever leave New York but the truth is that I am shipwrecked here like an eighteenth century colonial vessel, happily marooned in place.

Everyone asks me if I’ll ever leave New York but the truth is that the chances of me leaving go down every day my parents get older and more frail. I need to be here to plan overwrought Thanksgiving menus and hold their hands during IV insertions. As long as this is their home, this is my home.

Everyone asks me if I’ll ever leave New York but the truth is that I can’t drive and I don’t want to learn. This city is so embedded into my self-conception and I love myself and I love this city and why would I want to change any of that. I know that coastlines are fractals, born to splinter. I see the reformed erosion of other people’s lives and I am so so happy for them but that’s not what I want for me and I won’t apologize for it. Maybe it’s a struggle against time and nature to stay in one place but I refuse to call this inertia. It’s an act of love.

One day my parents will die and this city will have more ghosts than I know what to do with and maybe then I’ll become wind into the ether and put down roots somewhere a little less haunted. The only constant about time is that it passes in fitful, heartbreaking streaks. When I am unmoored from this city and those I have loved in it like a fraying rope, I’ll try not to take it personally. Molecules collide, burst apart; it’s chemical. Periodic table, Bunsen burner, that-time-my-lab-partner-and-I-accidentally-fused-our-crucible-and-lid-together-while-trying-to heat-up-Magnesium-Oxide chemical. We are branches coming off of a tree trunk, a series of divergent points. We are always in the process of scattering.