it is easy to become lost in the blinding lights of new york city
and the deafening sound of yellow taxi cabs and screaming
neighbors and the chatter of mundane conversations between
people who are ghosts in every sense of the word with
their paper thin hearts and transparent minds and the inability
to feel something other than the heavy weight of coffee
in their stomachs

it is easy for people to say that when new york city was made
God himself struck down and said "let their be light" but all i ever
see is the blur of motion as everyone runs to jobs they
all hate working with people they despise and then spending
their money at stars that don't even shine in poorly lit movie
theaters when the real ones are in the sky and in new york
every expensive restaurant is vegan friendly and boasts animal
rights and shames everyone who doesn't but no one
ever wonders what happens to the ducks in central park during december

it is easy to fall in love with new york city.
with the magic that it spreads with the euphoria that you feel being
surrounded by others with it's almost frightening ability to
take away your loneliness and manipulate you into thinking you
are happy, it is easy to fall in love with new york city.

it is also easy for you to say that you lost yourself in new york
because even when you say it no one will hear you
over the sound of madison square garden and it is easy to
call new york paradise it is easy to call it the city that never
sleeps because everyone stuck there is paralyzed

(h.l.)