I wish I could write about New York City. I wish I could describe the feeling of walking alone down 2nd avenue in Midtown to SoHo on an afternoon when the leaves are just starting to turn from green to orange. I wish I could tell you what it’s like to sit at the fountain in Central Park and witness the entire world in an instant. I wish I could make you feel the energy that vibrates through every seat in town at the mere mention of the Yankees, or that you could know through my words the breadth and distinction of Grand Central Station-- how it is so dynamic, so magnificent, standing before it is like breaking down and falling into yourself over and over again. Fractals. A body reduced from flesh and blood to particles in motion.

I can’t write about New York City because I’ve lost myself in it. A world I was so sure I would drink in and bleed has stolen me, broken me, divided me, and now I’m tethered to the gravity of something so sublime I'm afraid to touch it. I don’t want sleep because sleep means loss. I can’t sleep because I no longer exist. When I do sleep, it’s the best sleep I’ve ever had.

“Are you going to write about the trip?” asks my host, every time we kick off our shoes. She is a commandingly sweet Russian with red hair, red apartment accents, and the most infectious laugh I've ever heard. “Are you going to write about the trip?” she asks over foie gras, roasted duck and hunks of ricotta swimming in truffle oil, birch trees sprouting from golden walls in the periphery. “Are you going write about the trip?” she asks between sips of heavily poured meritage, gin, riesling, moscato, coffee.

I want to, but there’s neither rhyme nor reason to springboard from. How can words describe a scene missing a definitive feel, like the rhythm pumping under the streets of Tokyo, or the punishing, confused loveliness of Paris? New York is too fast, too changing to immortalize. Remembering anything the way it was when I experienced it would be a misrepresentation, and I can’t bear to lie. I can’t bear the possibility of my words adding to a whirlpool of tired stereotypes.

Tomorrow I return to San Francisco where there is more love for me than I deserve, and I know that I’ll feel comforted. But I also know that there will be a deep and inescapable ache for this city, and that I’m going to spend every minute doing what I can to get back to it.