In New York, No Longer Starved

New York says nothing to you as you wander the frost alone,

during the strange-feeling

and all too fleeting

beginning of the new year.

under the dusty, smoggy winter sky,

street lamps bathed in a milky haze

drunkenly lean against cement.

their halos flicker as snow blows in twisters,

in tandem with cigarette butts and

old frozen leaves.

burrowing through the dark, wet, earth,

a python creature of metal and plexiglass howls under your feet

and above your tousled hair

towers of glass and copper meld together, chameleon-like,

falling into one another with

the whiskey now softening your eyes.

this is not a place that has

any

place for you.

it doesn't need you -

it should barely even want you:

but,

in spite of it all,

you can go for a walk here and never want to return home,

somehow serene in the wild storm of changing things.

it might be that the chaos of these infinite streets matches some unresolved chaos within you:

it might be the liquor in your chest that makes you feel how

everything is happening

all at once.

every moment, particles fly through slits unobserved and cars

crash on highways and flower petals flutter and people kill

themselves and water for coffee boils and willow trees sway and

weep and dogs bark bloody murder, and there are too many

people, and they shout at each other, and then at themselves, and

then

at the snow

fluttering down the streets.

they cannot live without a reply.

only you know that the city speaks a language you can't understand, and only you know there is no sound more beautiful.

it is January first and your flask is empty.