Being born out of an oil spill
With gasoline swimming in the veins and capillaries
Cells spilling energy
Weeping for the blood of aged ideals
Shoved down the throat
Choking on dissonance and disenchantment

Ideals as clean cut as yours
Are easy to get lost in
Forgetting that your vision
Is fueled by the ants who
Breathe in sulfur and expel energy
For those who do not give them a time of day
And worse so, for those who discredit their life forces
And families who have known nothing
But the trade

If it’s all a dream
Then you have one leg in the door already
Honeysuckle filling the senses
Grass beneath bare feet
Branches wrapping themselves around your body
Like a safe house
Like a security blanket
Comforted by your origins
Remain within simplicity

But you’ll never get to know
The music of the taxis
Playing all the night and day
Signaling that movement is happening
Every day
Every night
Every hour
Every minute
Every second
Every time you bat your lids
For every face you see once in your life
And every train that you happen to miss by a single millisecond

You’ll never comprehend the joy
Upon a child’s face when they see that gray pigeon
Scavenging for crumbs
Padding small feet towards small feet
Knowing that they are equal only in that moment
And the curve of the lines on the man’s face
As he screams into his cell phone
And abruptly brushes past your shoulder
Running down to the corner of William and Cedar
And you losing his face in the crowd
Embracing a part of his anger, a part of his life
Only then and forever

You’ll never understand the value
Of a paved road
Of a rooftop sunset
Of a stranger’s compliment
Of the myriad of blinking lights
Filling the night like the stars you constantly harp on about
Each and every light a life

These are our stars

And if you look closely, you can still see the originators
Framing the sky with dim rays
Serving as both a reminder and a work ethic

There is a price to pay for progress
But without risk
Without passion
We have nothing
And it may be easy
To turn up your nose on those who choose to live amongst
Concrete and haze
Like a PETA member chooses an animal
Over the dignity of a woman
But I assure you that
One day you will forget the value of the clock
But the greatest gift the city has given is
Not a gift
But a reminder
We are all cells on a timeline

As much as we should work hand in hand
To sustain our dreams
Your spitefulness is misdirected and blinded
Choosing the scapegoat of the cover
Over the contents of the book

And as someone born from the oil spill
I find that offensive.