New york is a ****, a man once told me.

First you see beauty glittering in might

your heart beating in the arms of the moon.

But then as your eyes adjust to the sight

and your fingers separate day from noon

you can see the feasting rats dancing with

junk fueling lives with means to escape

suffocating on an old stripper's ***

hidden beneath the city's golden cape

Then, you hear the sax chant from Alphabet

dispersing the haze of the burning tea

rising above a poet's final set

and though there are other places to see

there is no where else, you would rather be.

She was a child once.
Eyes wide and sparkling with hopes and dreams untarnished.
An entire future stretching out before her.
She saw the world through a kaleidoscope,
A beautiful mess of endless neon colors,
Untouched by darkness and disappointment.
Pain was temporary; A scraped knee, a paper-cut.
Band-aids could heal every injury.

Her smile was a permanent fixture of sincerity,
Radiating happiness. A gaze full of inquisitive wonder.
When she lay her head down at night,
Her chest was not heavy with worries and cares.
Her mind was not filled with the ghosts of her past.
Sleep came easily, a quilt of comforting warmth enveloping her,
Sweeping her away to the land of dreams.

Blissful in her ignorance she lived, unaware that one day,
The monsters under her bed would make a home inside her head.
That her heart would fracture and die.
That the world she had known was a lie.
She wasted all her wishes wanting to be older,
Age was overrated, but nobody told her.

At 8 she was so innocent, at 10 she was just fine,
13 was disillusionment, the start of her decline.
At 15 she was in High School, they told her, "be mature".  
Society screamed conformity, now she was insecure.
At 16 she was lonely, desperation took its hold.
Love slipped through her fingers like drops of liquid gold.
Now, at 17, she's stuck in a recession.
She thought the therapy had dispelled her depression.

She looks in the mirror and despises her reflection,
She is bent, bruised and broken, a mess of imperfection.
Past mistakes, her tormenters, they tear her apart.
Her body, a cage, imprisons her heart.
Each breath is a burden as she lay in bed.
She can't sleep at night, theres a war inside her head.

No one ever told her the price of growing older.
They never said she'd have
A crushing weight put on her shoulders.
Suffocating in this life, poisoned at her core,
Once she was a child,
A child she is no more.

You know how in the movies
Cary Grant got away with
Everything? Like in Charade
He tricked Audrey Hepburn

Into helping him and went by
Peter, Alex, Joshua, each time
She learned his "real" name
Thought "I know him now and

I could love him better than he's
Ever been. He will never lie to
me again." And she dreamed
About his olderman lips and

His olderman hips that had
Certainly been around the block
A few times and definitely knew
A thing or two about the things

Her mother warned her about
She leans into him anyway
The sweeping music begins
The camera pans discreetly

Over to the wall, modesty
Is the best policy afterall
And the next morning he's
Singing in her shower, she's

Finally solved the mystery of
How he shaves in that sensual
Chin dimple get a woman to
Do it for him, she's weak in the

Knees thinking about her hand
On the razor and getting weaker
When he saves her from Walter
Matthau's evil clutches and James

Coburn, the other villains are long
Forgotten so they live happily ever
After and sing together in the shower
For about a week until she learns he's

Someone else. Not even Peter, Alex,
Joshua, so many men he's forgotten
He leaves her crying holding the
Straight razor in her forlorn little

Fingers. He was just a guy named
Arthur who charmed her with a
Funny accent then walked out the
Door and ran up her water bill like
A cad