Stories From America: fifty-two minutes

Walking blindly from my Nolita apartment, my time to escape, my reality, looking, yet not seeing what's before my eyes - I photograph tepidly, as I tear, and my nose, dripping, from winter's brisk breath.  

Cultures abound, as my legs give way, a strange cinematic familiarity - the man and his religion are real, exposed, on my photographic film, as if it were a moving picture show.  

Characters burst, my camera in hand, with their gestures and movements, distorts the truth, a new kind of truth emerges, recorded, yet something we rarely see. Gazing, not what my lens interprets, but what my mind consumes and what my film records. Knowing what to come, as seen 1000 times before, the thrill is undeveloped.  

Waking up in Canal Street Station, my camera still records - the half man, whom I never met, like all the others, who I encounter, who never say a word, yet photographed, twirling around me like a star.  

The hear and now is a blur, a step beyond, tripping, falling, yet still standing. Vertigo bestills itself inside me - too many buildings, too many people whizzing by - I manufacture, invent, fabricate my reality. Now in a tailspin, amnesia sets in, finally at peace for days or until we reach the end of our fifty-two minutes.