I Have Mixed Feelings for NYC

Nick Powers Jun 12, 2014

 

"I love NYC", it's on his shirt but he's a tourist so fuck him.

Has he been here long enough to love the pools of piss 

on subway steps leading to the sleeping drunk, a tossed

rag-doll in the corner?  

Or the corner men, licking your girlfriend with their eyes? 

Or gunshots scattering a block party like a flock of pigeons, 

flapping arms in useless flight?

Or a mother screaming on her child as if vomiting out every 

man's touch that led to this life?

Or the continuous rumble of the trains, shattering sleep until

you wear clothes and make-up like duct-tape over a broken

glass statue of liberty?

Do you really love this city Mr. I Just Fucking Came or buying

loyalty to a commercial that my friends are paid to act in, 

serving you drinks at the new bar, new restaurant, new cafe

until the lights go off and we train it home, putting fake smiles

into the same wallet as our tips.

I have mixed feelings about New York, empire city of the empire, 

skyscrapers like thermometers of capital, filling with white fever 

for money. We scrape the boredom from anyone who can pay

and wash it off at home, watching life swirl the drain until naked 

on a roof, we reach up and  finger the infinite channels crisscrossing 

the sky, everyone dreaming on credit, stolen from the dead, praying

to fame, not asking what's on the other side of the light, or if

failure is its only fuel. 

Can he know the price of loving this city? Can any of us? I can't

but it teaches me how to smile while I'm bleeding and who doesn't

love a survivor.