it's a college party
even though i never finished and the rest of y'all are spending money you don't have on the ingredients necessary for homemade sangria so you can drink the crippling anxiety of not knowing how to pay off your student loans away

there's a man living in a tent in the backyard, and i'm pretty sure we put one too many pieces of scrap wood in that very-hard-to-maintain bonfire. that has to be a metaphor for the state of most of our lives. stop throwing things i'm unprepared for in what already feels like a situation that is going to **** me.

is this a literal housewarming

i'm drunk, and sitting on the deck, counting the christmas lights. i smell ****, and there are white people dancing and singing to blink 182 inside.

i paint my name on a drywall with a brush and canisters i find on my way to the living room, where i'm asked to referee a game of beer pong. i lose interest quickly.

i scroll through my phone, sober enough not to text you but drunk enough to desperately want to. someone sits down next to me because i've apparently become that person at the party.

i talk about rent with a guy who really wants to connect on the fact that we're both middle eastern, even though i'm not middle eastern. he smells like PBR and completely believes what he's saying. he says he's proud of me for following my dreams of coming to new york and that he likes my "crazy hair" and that he wants to **** me.

i raise my eyebrows, more in disgust than interest, but he then takes his perceived cue to shamelessly ask me if i have a ******. i don't, and i leave before he brainstorms any alternatives i am just as aversive to.

ironically, i find a ****** dispenser attached to a tree on the walk to the subway. considering the amount of catcalling i experienced on the way to the station, my level of discomfort is amplified by the fact that the neighbourhood literally, physically implies, ******* is going to happen in the streets. it's 2am, and i just want to go home. and i'm sitting on the J train, recalling everyone who's told me it's shady and unreliable and makes you feel like you're going to die.

a few months later, i am nicknamed J train.

Two
Six
Six
Two
If she read this,
She would know exactly what I mean.

Her ghost is all around me.
Her voice rings in my head.

Two.
Six.
Six.
Two.
Even though it seems our chance has passed,
I'll never forget her.

Missing the trains, cars, and 3 AM bars. Excitement of the city, and the ache brought a pity. Of wanderlust she had once held in her hands and taken for granted. The adventure she had left there still overflowing in her heart. She had forgotten to appreciate the crowded avenues and beeping buses. The soft, gentle green grass of Central Park. The quiet and timid clink of silver spoons in coffee and tea shops. She missed the old rickety benches full of history and graffiti. The rough paved streets lined up with taxis. The food trucks overflowing with various smells calling your name. Even missing the loud taps of heels as businesswomen rushed passed her, to catch a meeting, a lunch date, a train. She realized what she thought she didn't want, was all she really needed. She thought she needed quiet and she thought she needed serene, but we all begin to realize nothing is what it seems. She knew what she needed to do, and she knew she would do it alone.  She would pack to go far, and get in a car,  going back to New York.... Her real home.

Every morning
I wake up in a city
that feels a little more familiar
each time my eyelids bloom daffodils
on a fire escape horizon.
Maybe I’m in love with a Newness
that begins to feel like Home.
Maybe I dream dumpsters
in Flatbush
or shoot Harlem
into my forearms.
Use telephone wires as tourniquets.
Maybe this girl I’ve been seeing has traces
of Paradise in her bloodstream.
                                          

                                           And then I have to remember this city is home to
                                           Pizza Rat, and bedbugs in the metro benches,
                                           and **** Holly Golightly,
                                           she never had to take the F train.


But maybe
she and I can share some unspoken reality,
and I’ll walk down 5th Ave. one day
holding my lover’s hand
as the sun turns sidewalks silver
and we’ll decide to grab a
croissant.

I wish I could go back in time
to simpler times
my Brooklyn times
Where I would just **** on my stoop,
with nothing to do
and think about how one day I make it big,
have my own family, house and kids
but here I am close to 30 still dreaming,
waiting patiently for my life to have some meaning
-E.G

I want to hold all the parts of you,
that I never knew existed.
and keep them close to my heart.

I want to see New York City
the way you grew up in it,
the part of you that still lives there.

I want you to take me to Brooklyn,
and I want to see you smile at me,
the way you used to smile.

I woke up this morning
With a smile on my face

I woke up this morning
So my smile can't be erased

Somebody didn't wake up this morning
I can hear there family weeping

Somebody didn't wanna wake up this morning
smiling to get through their  bleeding

I remember not wanting to wake up
In the morning
Hoping the pills would  
Take me away
Caught up in the Rapture
Now  I'm free I wanna stay

I wanted to wake up this morning
I got a 2nd chance
To live in my freedom
Smiling while I dance
-Lynn Legend

Lynn Browning ©

I'm fighting my demons
Trying not to let them
Get the best of me
But it ain't easy
When my demons is what
Comforts me

I be good on the outside
Falling apart from within
Life got so hard I thought
I was strong but I gave in

I no I'm living in sin
But everybody lives
In the fog every now n then

I no I can win I'm stuck
On addiction

Got me wishing
I can get through
This and no longer play
Victim

I'm not weak I just gotta listen
But I'm stuck in the addiction


-Lynn Browning ©