“It is necessary to find one's own way in New York. New York City is not hospitable. She is very big and she has no heart. She is not charming. She is not sympathetic. She is rushed and noisy and unkempt, a hard, ambitious, irresolute place, not very lively, and never gay. When she glitters she is very, very bright, and when she does not glitter she is dirty. New York does nothing for those of us who are inclined to love her except implant in our hearts a homesickness that baffles us until we go away from her, and then we realize why we are restless. At home or away, we are homesick for New York not because New York used to be better and not because she used to be worse but because the city holds us and we don't know why.” 

― Maeve Brennan

Fragile Instruments

There is a sadness

in my bones.

A dull ache

that appears 

and reappears,

like an old injury

when it rains.

It throbs

like my head does

when I hang upside down 

over the edge

of my grandmother's sofa.

I pour myself 

a cup of coffee

and read a love poem

to numb the hurt

I feel when I read

black headlines

in the morning sun.

When I smile,

I press my bottom lip

against the sharp edges 

of my teeth. 

Sometimes,

when I'm alone

and the air in the room 

is reserved only for

my paper lungs, 

I can hear the sadness 

rattle inside of me 

like the sound

of marbles

rolling against each other 

in a velvet bag,

and it's a sound so sweet, 

so achingly beautiful,

it hollows out

my bones

until they are nothing

but fragile instruments

of loneliness. 

I watched the news

this afternoon

and my collarbone 

snapped in half.

A Bleeding Heart

I fear my heart isn't as big as I thought it was

Everyday I fill its valves and arteries with stranger smiles and kind words and dazzling metaphors for what it means to love someone as much as I love myself

And I'm worried that my pulse is becoming faint as I bleed for people who have plenty of blood already
I'm worried that my heart beats too fast for too many people whose hearts beat for not enough people
And that by the time another heart beat finally echoes against my own
There won't be any room left for their name to run through my veins

I'm Driving

I'm driving
It's dark outside
And the street lamps glow orange
Illuminating the car
In measured flashes
As I write stories in my head
Using the sky as ink
And the road as my page
The shadows are my characters
They dance and fight and disappear
And they fascinate me to a point
That's almost scary
And I feel full and alone
All at the same time
But I can never think of an ending
To my story

If Chicago Could Think

Standing on a transparent ledge,
You'll see nothing but steel beauty
But look closer, squint both eyes
And my streets turn to rubble
Washed in White

Alien accents driving
Lipgloss-covered taxi cabs,
More entitled to my streets than
Wisconsin in the back, who says
God Bless

Jazz simmers from open windows
Tourists lose themselves in slices
I stare into a mirror made of coffee

And my reflected silouhette is crookedly

Beautiful

The hungry help the starving;
"Will tell joke for money."
There is nothing funny about it,
But pale faces crack into smiles
Anyway

Wind coming off the River
Sweeps violence through
My heavy doors with a whisper,
Evolution with each revolution,
I Promise

Note: edited version 

Chicago

Curb-side trash
Takes human form.
Visitors are awed,
"This city is so clean!"

Art Museum Patrons on a Sunday Afternoon

Old men,
With round, Whiskey bellies,
Tug on their serious lapels
and hum at Picasso.

Old women,
With glasses perched on pointed noses,
Jingle the bangles around their wasp wrists
and nod at Monet.

Young men,
With pants tucked into sneakers,
Scratch their 5 o' clock beards
and raise their eyebrows:
A Question.

Young women,
With their painted mouths and curled lashes,
Cock their wide, proud hips
and purse their lips:
A Critique.

They enter clutching the fare for priceless art - a reasonable, twenty-three dollar fee.

And leave with tired feet, puffed chests, and a deluded sense of understanding - the heavier cost by far.