Now I'm just the fly
on the rim of her
chardonnay glass.
A tourist everywhere I go.
It brings me back to
that apartment in the South Bronx,
an onion disguised as an apple,
an old boy who no longer trusts
the weatherman.
I leave the lights on when I'm gone
so that coming home feels less lonely.

The days pass
under feet
like cracks in the sidewalk
under pressure
by the traffic jam
of cognition ants
that echos with
the engines on 8th.
They slip our minds
like hair
down the shower drain,
minuscule things that
we can lose
because they seem so
dispensable.
But the old man still sings,
the crows still fly north
toward downtown,
and far away galaxies
still waltz,
out in the cold
and empty,
before you,
now,
and long after.
It is a ****** kind
of gorgeous,
where even the eyes
of a stranger
can help us
to thaw.

The world is burning
it lights the tip of this spliff
spiffy satisfaction is what we want
what is the market price for that?
And so tied tight and hard to get undone
are the sun and the moon,
midnight and noon,
me and you,
soon,
maybe we don't sleep tonight.

Just like the gun
and the bullet,
we were made for each other
but ended up
so **** far
apart.

I'm in between two apartments.
I'm lonely.
I was planted here
by the owner
of the apartment
on the left.
I'm the only rosebush.
I've been here
for about
ten years
and I wish
that I could
move to a spot
with a little more sunlight.

She couldn't go back
to her empty apartment.
It's not that her feet
couldn't handle the
five block walk,
it's more that
Lafayette street never felt
like home.
In fact, no place has,
at least not since
there first were new
colors in the sky.
She curses the sun
but not other stars;
they had never burnt
her skin.

And somewhere
out in the cosmos
between black nothingness
and star glitter
she was hoping
to find someone,
someone she mistook
for me.

I can see the whole city from up here.
There are buildings reaching for the sky,
so as to expedite the process
of getting into some heaven
that doesn't exist for most of
the people here.
The roads are woven together like a fabric
that is less like silk
and more like the towels
at any of the ****** motels lining Colfax.
The same smog that clouds my mind
lays atop this concrete like a warm blanket
that eats away at your lungs before moving
on to your soul for dessert.
I see only a few castles
yet there are kingdoms of shanties.
There are no gardens here
and the trees are fake.
If pain could manifest itself
in any physical form, it would take the shape
of this city.

And yet, I can see a shirtless old man,
singing along with the radio on his balcony
and drinking the beer I used to drink when
I was a teenager.
The sun still penetrates the smog
and presses its lips to the skin and antiquated shape
of his weathered body.

I can't pretend to know his story
or anyone's story for that matter,
but the echo
of his voice and radio
are the staunchest display
of protest I have ever seen.
In a world suffocated
by the cacophony of our
shared suffering,
his song is the anthem
for us all.