new york

what i hate about new york

is the constant pushing on all sides;

the pressure to be glamourous all the time.

to live up to it,

all the time.

and here's what i want to say to you, new york,

before i venture back onto your sidewalks

glittering in the sunlight:

i don't want it.

in fact, i want the opposite.

i want to be dirty,

i want to live in the dirt.

i want to be covered in the unpleasant reality of human beings

who just want hope,

(but still do what they do to get by).

new york,

i like walking by the piles of shit that my here neighbors leave behind.

because, some burdens are really just too heavy to keep.

new york, i would rather have my fingernails peel

than my fingers lined with gold.

obstinately, i protest.

there is more, new york, than composing my perfect life in my perfect studio and working working working to keep it clean.

and so i will work to keep my eyes and my heart open.

i will read novels that remind me of all the feelings that i (so often) like to forget.

life is tragic.

new york, i will not gloss over sorrow.

but, i will ask for tears to come, and i will buy used to clothes as to not enslave children,

nor myself.

yes, i will work to keep myself free.

and my glamor will be in my pursuit of Beauty, not of things.

i am tired of having so many things.

i want to for free or for cheap, and laugh and feel love well up inside of me.

and then,

then i want to fly.