New York will,
Like the cliché,
Chew you up,
Spit you out
Then make you turn back
And miss it.
By then it’s too late
To save face;
It’s made you loyal,
Die-hard; true blue
So that you want nothing but
Grey-and-navy pinstripes to win
Even if you find baseball
Boring, albeit All-American.
Swanky: Now you get to brag
To all your friends back home
That you once lived in New York:
Living the dream!
Though the idea of finding an agent
And struggling to perform there
Seemed more repulsive
the further you grew away from
K-12 theater competitions.
Your college friends now are all
Still out there, back East:
Living the dream!
You hear fragmented details
About their lives through
LinkedIn updates, word of mouth:
Grad school, marriage, start-ups—
Brilliant.
These are the 1-3 carat diamonds
You search for now
on conflict-free websites:
Competing now in
size, cut, and clarity.
It makes you wish you would’ve said
“God, I really love my friends”
Too, publicly, on your own LiveJournal.
But these are just hints of regret:
Mostly you’re just proud
You got to be part of
The living, breathing machine
Billions of tiny moving things
Bickering, working in tandem to
Outperform every other city
No matter where you go.
Even if you never go anywhere
Else ever again.
It was louder then,
More cramped
and desperate.
Still, you settle for your war cries
When familiar word comes in on the radio,
Hailing alongside the broadcast
In misty nostalgia:
New York,
New York.
Chanting in perceived unison:
New York,
New York.
Even when it’s only you
In the room who cares:
New York,
New York.
