brooklyn, i'm breaking up with you

somewhere i can hear her singing still.
‘new york i love you but you’re bringing me down’
new york is always bringing someone down.
someone taking the train to the end of the line
getting out at every stop just to realize everything looks the same
realizing the skyline isn’t fireflies sitting above the river
realizing that this city has no feelings 
and so it won’t ever love you back.

 

new york, you’re poison.
you’re polluting my dreams,
and i’m getting sick of writing about your glass menagerie
i’m nauseous just thinking of your silhouetted schemes
brooklyn, i’m breaking up with you
get out of my apartment, give me back my keys
but buy me a pack of overpriced menthols before you leave.

 

so that night i hid on the bridge, a pint in my pocket
getting drunk without a chaser as i cursed the river
cursed this city, cursed my broken heart
talking to myself and getting strange looks 
as i tripped over my boots
new york, you’re driving me crazy,
and i’m smoking the filter of the chrysler building
and the snow falling in my hair 
feels more like ashes in my lungs

 

“you don’t want to die,
you’re just getting started
you’ve got another whole decade to fuck up and make mistakes
and do whatever you want”
they all told me the same thing, 
but i still stared in to the east river wishing for death.
new york, you’re killing me.

 

so she found a car to take her home,
left me sitting in the street grasping for rat poison
in the cracks of the asphalt.
so this is new york, it’s like heroin in my veins
beautiful, full of empty promises, picking me up 
just to drop me hard on my ass in flatiron
with a pack of cigarettes, heartburn and a toothache
but it’s “the city of dreams,” right, 
so how could it break my heart?

This poem is about: 
Me
My community

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