We met at that UES Pub
Almost three years ago
And we ended up getting closer
Than she who introduced us to each other.

So much history engraved
In the diamonds we sold.
Moments when it’s just us in a room typing,
Talking about our past and common dreams.

Laughter and our hold on our faith
It’s what glues us together.
All the late nights at the office with music blasting
We sing along and continue working.

We were made to be in sync,
From knowing each other’s thoughts without speaking
To that silent, judging look we share
Then chortling because things happen for "a reasons."

You are the other half of me,
From our same decibel laugh and partner appetites
To the fact that I fit in your clothes
During unplanned sleepover nights.

I might not have replied
Mostly because I was too busy hugging you and crying
But yes, and I know your heart knows this
You are my NY best friend too.

I've written too many poems for too many people. something about you, I know, is different. even the image of your cold eyes skipping across the words I'm creating is nothing short of a miracle. the thought of your distant mind holding a blurred depiction of me seems impossible. you deserve more than a poem- more than standing up on some balcony thinking, just for a second, you loved some girl you never met. and maybe you loved her because you saw the best of her. but, she loved you because she saw some of the worst in you. and you made her see it in herself.

how can I miss someone I've never met? someday, you'll just become another insect weaving along the streets. a heavy look, yet somehow empty, stained on your face. it will age even further than your mind already has. it will flash on TV screens and billboards who advertise a man they think they can define. just know, I'll refuse to say your name- and I'll still miss you.

this is not a poem. it's not a sonnet, nor a song, nor a love note. this is something to remember on the subway. something to hold on to when the sting of fluorescent lights loses its luster, and the smell of the city is deemed no longer potent. it's easy for me to believe in a years time, I will still be the face you never laid eyes on and the body you never touched. it's harder for me to percieve this as truth.

wherever it is that you go, I know it will be with confidence. I don't have to worry about your success or stability. I will worry I have been forgotten, just as swiftly as the thoughts I've told you when you're the only one keeping me up deep into the pit of night. you teach me more than I have ever learned in a textbook; sometimes, even more than I have learned as I walk amongst the pests inside this anthill. I cant make you feel: I can't make you miss me and I can't make you love me; I don't want you to. I can't make you touch me, and you shouldn't. I can't make you accept the warm embrace I'd willingly give you, hell, I can't even make you give me the chance to try.

I can't make you do anything, but wherever you go, whatever you do, I will always think highly of you. I'm sure you'll live wearing gold along your knuckles thats worth more than my life, and chatting with strangers I can only read about in novels. maybe someday, you'll reach back and taste just a hint of nostalgia from some scrap of me that flickers in your mind. maybe someday, you'll long for endless nights of voiceless conversation. and maybe, someday, you'll miss me too.

Asphault rats                             Lonely suits
guide longing                            snug tightly
hungry beasts                            around cigarette
under bridges                            smoke hidden
through afterglow                    under ******
oceans rippling                         Ivy League
snarling hoods                         fraternity paddels
through tunnels                       slapping clean
leaving subway                        bruised-white
cars lonely                                old-money *****
trudging aimless                     walking tall
after some                                through window
fortune here                             lookouts of
in S.E                                        shining N.W
corners D.C.                            sidewalks D.C

The subway in NYC
Is a rather odd circumstance
Underground transit
Tunnels from one world to the next
Cluttered
Smelly
Sometimes cold
Or terribly hot
All races
So many workers
In service of this city
I sit and I wonder
Why must I do this?
Is this part of the dream?
Or do dreams have repercussions?
A homeless man
Asks for a dime
A dollar he says
Will bide him some time
Every day I work
And every day I spend
In and out of the subway
Feels like quick sand
Underground, lost in thought
Is it all an illusion?
Are we really going anywhere?
I'd like to take my bike
Up into the clouds
Look down on all the beauty
And reconsider the
System
That rules underground
Delays our existence
I'm bound
Eleutheromania
Is what I feel each day
Aggravated by the mundane
By the waiting
I am stuck
Cramped between strangers
On time, early
Words I don't often employ
When I'm talking about myself
Lately I'm wondering
If my eternal clock is behind
Some things are so simple
Obvious
Quick to understand
Easy to achieve
Friendships I make
With very little effort
Lovers are not
So simple or obvious
I try to understand
Am I ever heading in the right direction?
Am I too easy?
Or is it too difficult to achieve?
I find so many men to be like the subway
Often a waste of time
Unreliable, mysterious
A nuisance
And yet I return
Almost every day
To the need and desire
To take the ride
Believing I'll arrive exactly where I want to be
Even if I'm late

when I sit in bed listening to the sounds of the city outside my window
I feel like I owe it a poem, creativity, something beautiful
to eternalize it's beauty in someway
the sounds of cars speeding through the bridge at 3:34am
souls repelled and pulled by the never-ending enigma that is the city
the heels of woman clacking across the cement, finding their ways home
the white noise in the rare moment that silence invades
this all silently screams to me, "paint me like a French girl"
I'm a muse, waiting to be picked upon
and nothing will ever be good enough

so many shades of home
exist simultaneously in this city

and i feel so lucky to call this corner mine for now.

i'm sure someday i'll be hidden away in the mountains again
or surrounded by thousands of trees so much taller than i

but for now the lights on train are exciting enough.

It's the flame that burns through each layer of skin
if you resist, you can try to save yourself from these sins
It's bottled upon the top cabinet, to the right, in the left side of the kitchen,
next to the cabinet there's a window
letting the hazy skyline fill in the unspoken words from your lips
You can try to conceal these wrongs, drink away this burning flame
but the ashes will always remain.
Look, and walk around, the cursive words
scribbled on the doors of bathroom stalls
abandoned buildings to sinful to care who desecrates them any further
Soon, you don't have to see but hear
the drying throat, hope to swallow more doubt into the pit of hell.
The longer you bear this pain, the more time will reach its last hour
and when the world has shut the door on your face
leaving you in limited space
these secrets will be written on your arsenic bones
and all that will remain is the secrets heavy in the New York air.

In this city the bright lights can blind you
let you forget the rustic coins littered around the floor
caught by grimy hands belonging to a woman
she holds her life on a thin piece of cardboard
written in faded Sharpie

If you ever lose your way with the crowd
and stumble upon the empty alleyways
they possess cracked glass from beer bottles,
old shopping advertisements, broken toys
and the stench of trash mixed with lost hope realizing
the pavement isn't always perfect but littered with cracks

Walk further down and you will pass the rejected streets,
houses gone foreclosed and no remorse
all that matters is the country's history,
pressed on notorious green paper belonging to greedy hands
forgetting about the family that lost their house

Wait at the train station,
for the rumble and two yellow lights
The snake of a train claims passengers
trapping them between closed doors,
only allowing them to face their own misery
some escape with headphones
others just stare into the darkness with sunken eyes and drunken sighs

Walking home see the gum wrappers and dead leaves skid around
the soles of your worn shoes
Graffiti garage doors only display discarded art
And when the night is still
you can feel the empty consonants and vowels crawl up your legs
forming the unspoken words from unwanted voices that lay

Hidden under our feet.