There is a burning sensation right behind the optic nerves of my eyeballs
I have reached 52th and Amsterdam, I am still blocks away from the Cathedral
I told the woman not to wear heels, impractical as they are,
I hope God is noticing the bleeding callouses on her feet.
I can’t walk inside the Cathedral,
for me I am already in it,
this city as an honest temple of man,
in all it’s raw scarring and beauty.
    
  Months go by.
I am nowhere near the apartment off 70th and Amsterdam
There is still a burning behind the optic nerves of my eyeballs
It is frustrating. I have
been recording a song for hours
trying to replicate the static of the waves near the ocean bay
trying to somehow enunciate my words
while still being the right pitch

it is hard
and I am pleasing no one.
And so now I write a poem about it,
listing away all the curious mundanity
of all of it.