Be open-minded and admit the possibility
That some things are objectively wrong
We all live in a constant state of gray area

I see you pretty often, maybe once every week or so
For a moment our bubbles come very close to overlapping
But they so far have always held firm
Which is, in one respect, kind of amazing
Yet in another, to be expected

Our bubbles are made of rubber and concrete
Our lives are so different - we’re separated by
Class, gender, age, ethnicity and health history
Different in almost every way you could imagine
Save for location, which again is amazing

If we ever step out of our bubbles one day
And I actually hope we do
It will be uncomfortable, I imagine, and also
Potentially dangerous for both of us
But it could turn out great

Most people ask themselves I guess
Whether it’s worth the risk
And say no and they probably make assumptions
And I so far haven’t made too many about you
Although to make none is impossible and so of that I am proud

Some things might be wrong even if
Everyone does them and even if
You or I do them constantly
Without an ounce of guilt
It’s possible anyway

He has a bench in Central Park,
a step on Seventh Avenue,
a corner on Broadway.
But home is a feeling rather than a location,
something those who have a lock and key and
a mortgage fee will never understand.
The gatekeepers tell him
‘That bench is for people to sit on’,
so he grabs his sleeping bag with beat up weathered hands,
and leaves the park,
realising ‘people’ is another category in which he does not belong.
Autumn is here
so winter is near.
A chance to rush to snowy mountains with Chanel scarves
to escape ‘dreary’ lives.
He takes his vacation
from park to doorway,
views aren’t as nice but it dulls the bite.
As night drapes over Manhattan, he zig zags between expressionless crowds,
invisible
like an unread word.
He seeks a corner just off Broadway (the bright lights numb his loneliness).
In soiled clothes and old scuffed shoes,
he sits on newspaper wrinkled by other hands
and watches passers-by with bloodshot eyes,
bills burning in their pockets.
A man with shoes shinier than dreams
soils his corner with a *** of spit.
He wonders,
do I belong everywhere, or nowhere at all?
And he pulls out his guitar and begins to sing,
October cough thick with illness,
‘They say
the neon lights are always bright
on Broadway’.