Our city

Remember stepping onto the bustling streets of Midtown
Feeling like ants in a colony,
rushing toward that sea of people.
Lost in my city’s current.
Bending and twisting through rapids of locals and tourists,
draining the streets in a familiar pattern; the train won’t wait.

 
We watch the painful flyers from our windows
and take in a sizzling smell of shish,
fueling our starvation for the touch we brushed off last month.
We cry, like a leaking vat of burnt-out essential oils, hoping to drip uptown;
searing our streets with healing solidarity.
Yearning.

Yearning for the moment we splash out of our puddles and rejoin the river.
Yet the river doesn’t rise as high anymore.
Some left in ice-cold trucks, Others...
Others quaffed the poisonous advice of ill-tempered demagogues.
Diverted away, toward tributaries beyond.

 The course of our city, changed. Possibly forever.