make sure you have everything

"The written word is an attempt at completeness when there is no one impatiently awaiting you in a dimly lit bedroom - awaiting your tales of the day, as the healing hands of someone who knew turn to you and touch you, and you lose yourself so completely in another that you are momentarily delivered from yourself. Whispering across the pillow comes a kind voice that might tell you how to get out of certain difficulties, from someone who might mercifully detach you from your complications. When there is no matching of lives, and we live on a strict diet of the self, the most intimate bond can be with the words that we write."
-Morrissey, Autobiography (95-96)

I read from Morrissey's Autobiography as some friends and I rode up along the Hudson River on the Metro North toward Cold Spring. I thought about boys and life and loneliness, which I am prone to doing normally, especially so when reading this particular book.

At the Croton-Harmon stop, I noticed the poetry of the announcement given at each stop. It took on a particular resonance in that moment:

"Watch your step. Make sure you have everything."

We hiked up a mountain. There were beautiful views from up there. We hiked down the mountain and into Cold Spring. We ate some food, drank some beers, ate some pie, drank some wine. We looked at some antique stores and bought some wine to drink on the train ride home. I fell asleep, Morrissey in my lap. He held back from the cuddling though, and I woke up groggy, still alone, and with a man sleeping next to me.