New York, it violently breaks my soul into a million pieces.

You told me

And I whispered

That I used to love the sea.

“Or the country with its massive hills rolling.

I thought it fit the storm in my chest.”

You dwelled for a moment.

“I used to love the sea.”

But “We'll city to the seas”, your eyes always seem to exude.

And once I gave my vulnerability up to your concrete, I decided one day, one day I'll stop holding so tightly.

I'll stop squeezing.

And, please, that they'll keep breathing.

And you and I will keep meeting.

New York, it violently breaks my soul into a million pieces.

And then slowly, tenderly puts them back together.

“I'm in stars”, she said.

Or at least I heard.

I attempted, "stars", again. Just once more.

They're glowing sharply in mind.

“And I think they’re killing me.”

But someone said “You're wrong” in a thousand voices and I began to paint a picture with my tears.

I cried in love as I knelt down on one knee in front of Central Park's trees

And said I'll never vow anything.

“Not how they told me to.”

I’ll never run to the book, love, I’d rather hold onto you.

I'll never “de-flower”

I'll never lose it, that word “virginity”,

Violently thrown at us as a word of chains and expectations…

Heavy chains...and yet in the same life’s breath

We’re supposed to lose the chains, like feathers, next.

My voice shakes as I confide in the city,

"I'll never lose it…

Because it wasn't theirs to take.

Because it doesn't exist”, my whisper sang

With the innate fears of a system that was born with us and continues to scar.

And I whispered to you, even if he was right,

And if the angels really didn’t believe in a love like this, it’s night,

I’d rather forget that heaven.

Then at least, on this earth, rather than suffocated with false angelic wings,

Cast me to hell, then, I will continue to try to breathe with the others that truly love and sing.

I'll never be the angel’s wings

I’ll never be the “American dream”.

I'll never wear that bouquet

Of that nervous promise of “maybe someday”.

I'll never tell you that I wish for another.

I say, “No, dear, not me.”

And neither will you

And we’ll grow in the earth, together under softer skies

And if you listen, I’ll tell you more with my eyes.

New York, I'll hold your hand for the rest of this life.

I'll walk the world with you as long as you continue to scare me and calm me

With your cemented, mystical arms in the same breath that blows through dangerous tunnels, under lighted skies with an unending electrical current.

I'll carry you with my dancing feet that happily blister,

As I drag them from an end upon another.

And when you must carry me,

I promise I'll let my tired legs go limp in your gentle embrace.

I'll drink from your night breath.

I'll hail from your miles high, sky highs,

Starry nights and broken goodbyes.

"New York that doesn't sleep" became "New York, I am losing my mind."

But I think I've lost my soul, because it went off to form itself a multicolored well to nurture me with.

And in its abandonment over these years I am being built.

I'll walk across the cement trails that they forgot to hide, I'll let you learn me.

New York, I’ll grow myself in you from a million miles away, and also rooted in your grey grass.

New York has given me another reason to engulf the flames of my mind

In its own flamed knowledge,

In bespoken secrets of millions of vastly different people that are alive in one field.

Like a field that they lied “we forgot to water",

But in absence of growing the green grass that it was told to grow but wasn’t made to,

In the neglect the field birthed a weed.

And then a family of weeds.

And then the weeds awoke

And then the weeds rebelliously sprung up and grew not taller

But more than all others with love never smaller.

And they didn’t grow the green they were told to,

But instead embraced their beautiful grey and loved it their own.

Amongst the flowers that everyone knows,

New York said hi to the weeds and held their hands.

And the weeds, they grow.

New York’s beautiful smile has ripped across souls a thousand

And its heart breaks, as it looks down upon the poverty that strikes it

As its men in their wealth continue to terrorize the earth’s people

As they continue to express ownership over what they have not

And have never helped to grow.

And one day I hope to God,

Her loving black arm will reach through and over first the city, then the world

While she holds her lovers' hand of androgyny, both women steadfast, and reminds the unblinking robotic again, "How dare you. You cannot be this.

I will hold my children fast, remember it.”

And I’ll hold your hand as you lead, and we’ll scream,

“Let them breathe” as our hearts will bleed.

My mind cried at the stories these people told and continue to tell.

Of people like me, of people not.

And all my siblings, our hearts with pain swell.

And I hugged my fingers in all my own faults, and I angered at all our own pain.

"I don't sleep well near the land anymore."

New York, in my restless slumber, holds me instead so gently in its insomnia.

"Almost like..."

The hot dog stands and musically honking horns gave my silence a tone.

"You embody the city," I thought through a voice that quaked aloud before I could stop it,

Before I could keep my eyes from falling into yours.

And one day I'll turn back around to you and I know I'll misstep and I’ll repeat the past and say, "I'm in stars."

But then that might be alright.

And I might shake violently.

And I might never know.

And you might tell me from this exact spot to never go.

And I'll say no.

But I’ll let you hold me,

And you'll with me and my stars stay, always.

And while we walk together in silence that speaks so loudly,

I'll let you know I love you, wildly

And on bridges that hug the skyscrapers, I'll kneel in a different way, silently.

You'll feel my heart scream in silence for the city that bleeds

With hopes and beams and hope for dreams

A forgotten dance with your beautiful mind, unsung,

As I caress your hand wildly violently in love and passion forevermore undone.

As we all say, “New York, I hear you, sweetheart.”

Now help them hear us.”