Palette yellow of yolk,
silver guns—many—hung high on the wall.
A man sips whiskey in a short glass,
thinking three, maybe four.
Black coat pressed to brick,
he wonders:
What is it all for?

People pass—tall ones, short—
their eyes scan the street
like art for sale.
Men in white jackets,
women in skirts
with long legs
that could outrun yesterday.

And what if the guns
on that yolk-yellow wall
were melted into sculpture,
and the sky turned
from grey to night?

Sculptors and sculptures,
artists with red-stained brushes,
writers dropping clichés
like skyscrapers collapsing into verse.
Letters stretch like towers,
spaces bustle like streets.

Salesmen and people preach—
pitching concepts
to crowds like prophets in tailored suits.
The sound spills into the square.

Horns hoot,
cars hiss past,
exhaust coils in the air
like city incense.
People march left, right
ants with nowhere real to go.

A man taps a bucket drum
metal echoes in rhythm.
The cling-clang of falling change
fills his heart with warmth
but not the scarf
that guards him at night.

Coffee steam and scattered chatter
ghost through his thoughts.
Green light: go.
Amber: maybe go faster.
Red: stop, or forget to look back.

A man in a pressed white shirt,
Italian shoes,
watches it all.
Importance—just a trick of the mind.

Windows sparkle in every direction—
selling what we crave,
but never need.
Cliché,
but honest.

And in the center,
beneath neon breath,
a statue—bronze and copper—
shines.

A buffalo.
Mighty.
Fighting off a leopard
as it leaps upon his rear.
What did the artist feel
when tool met form?
What soul spilled
into metal?

Around me
reds, blues, greens, yellows.
Purple sweaters
draped like royalty.
Name-brand blazers,
black shoes polished
like ambition.
A black-and-white scarf
like city stripes.

This place hums
with sound, with scent,
with people and pulse.
Billboards beam
scenes that feel
like a worm becoming butterfly.

This is the city I live.
Alive. With potential.

Yet so many
walk head down,
clutching yesterday’s newspaper
like it still breathes truth.

And then—
I met the flower seller.
A basket of blooms at her hip,
bunches of color
and single red roses
like soft weapons of the heart.

“Buy these for someone special,”
she said with a smile.
And I thought, who could that be?

I paid.
Clutched the roses
as their thorns pricked my hand
love is just like this,
a sharp poke
wrapped in beauty.

She smiled,
a kindness in her eyes
as I walked away
holding six red roses
with no one to give them to.

It’s strange
how women smile
when a man carries flowers
like a banner of romance.
They think: some lucky woman.
But the truth?
I bought them out of pity.
They had no home.

So I gave them away.

To strangers
not for beauty,
but for need.
Left one on a park bench.
Another at the feet of a sleeping person.
One placed gently
on a café table
where a woman sat alone,
a waiter laying down the bill.

She declined.
I left it anyway.
And walked off.

Looking back,
she held it.
Smiling.

The final rose I held close for a moment,
stopping a couple walking hand in hand.
“Excuse me,” I said, “this is for you.”
The gesture caught them off guard.

This is what the world needs more of.
More cling-clang of change
in a busker’s bucket.
More roses
for those who need a reason to smile.
More quiet kindnesses
that ripple outward.

And then I moved
toward the subway,
where people crowd the cars
everyone going somewhere.
Who knows where?

A pregnant woman stepped on,
her hand resting on the small of her back.
Someone stood,
offering their seat
without a word.

I caught their eye,
nodded,
and smiled
a silent thank you
carried in the crowd.

Everyone
going
somewhere.

I shouted up with trembling fists,
"Tell me, stars, why do I exist!
How do I shine? How do I last?
How do I burn into the past?"

I’m small—too small to make a mark,
a flick of dust beneath your dark.
But still I scream: “How do I rise?
How do I echo through your skies?”

The universe blinked, slow and wide,
and let the silence stretch and slide.
Then clouds rolled in and whispered low,
"Ask the rain what it longs to know."

The rain replied through windowpane,
“I fall, I vanish, then rise again.
Not all are built to carve in stone
some change the world by being unknown.”

I yelled, “But I want crowds and cheers!
I want my name in future years!
I want to matter—more than breath!
I want a voice that fights off death!”

The stars looked down with silver sighs,
"Ask the sky what fills her eyes.
Ask the dusk, the sea, the pine
they’re old, and wiser still than all time."

The wind blew past with tangled grace,
“You’re not remembered for your face.
Not for your name, or shine, or shout
but what you gave when no one found out.”

I slumped beneath a restless moon,
demanding, “Tell me something soon!
How do I matter, small and loud,
beneath your stars, beneath your cloud?”

The universe did not explain.
It wept in dew. It breathed in rain.
And through the hush, the silence spoke:
"To be the fire, you feed the smoke.

To be the name, you live the vow.
To matter then—you matter now.
Not for applause, but what you give
in how you love, and how you live."

So here I stand, still small, still bright,
still yelling questions into night.
And if no answer ever comes
I'll burn like stars whose names are none.

Until the day of mine has come .

I never learned the rules they made —
the apps, the games, the masquerade.
I tried them once, they felt too loud,
like chasing something through a crowd.

I’ve had my nights, I’ve played my part,
but none of it could reach my heart.
I want something that doesn’t fade —
but not the way it’s now portrayed.

I’m not online, I stepped aside.
Not hiding — just not in the tide.
I don’t perform. I don’t compete.
But that’s how people seem to meet.

They match, they text, it moves so fast —
like every moment’s built to pass.
And while I watch it come and go,
I wonder where the slow hearts go.

Where do they cross, where does it start,
when swipes replaced the human part?
I never learned to play the cut —
Which leaves me here. Now what?