I can know no peace. “Monk’s Dream,” or really just the first eight bars of it, won’t leave my head. Those eight bars, not really eight bars, more so two bars thrice then two bars more, so really four bars, four bars on repeat, playing over and over. That tune, the uneasy pause, the run, the fragmented jumps, it plays over and over. Something else. I just wish I could think something else. But it’s there still, always. My mind wanders. A pause. But always: pause, run, jump. It won’t leave my head. The corners of her lips turned slightly up. I can’t make it leave my head.

14th Street-Union Square. Pause, next stop: 23rd Street. No seats. No space at all really, my hand is pressed into the roof. Run, jump, 28th Street. I’m sick. Her station. Her eyes. Do they ever look at me? Actually look. Take me in. I don’t want to see her. I do see her. In my head. I need to breathe. Make it stop.

Pause, run, jump. Those words. Rewound, replayed. A brief exchange, its syllables and syncopation, drawn out into weeks. I hate this. Times Square-42nd. I’m off, that perfect timbre still in my ears. I wish I’d never met her, that there were no things to dream. A pause. But always: her smile, her eyes, her voice. The record skips.

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