I like to think I'm friends with New York City;
Or maybe I'm her greatest enemy.
I siphon the life from her streets;
The veins of her parks, the scapes that made me.
As skyscrapers raise to the heavens to escape from my pen;
I chase them down the avenues, welcome to my hell.
Inhale my verses like the sweet surrender of the sewers;
You are mine and I am yours.
Oh, New York City;
What have you done to me?
What have I become?
I have come undone.
I came here almost ten years ago;
Just a kid with glasses and a formulating ego.
Acting up like the heroes of the eighties;
Trying pizza pretzels at the bottom of the city.
As my pupils dilated and my world shifted;
I knew I would leave as someone else, someone different.
Now, look at me,
Shakespearean-ly in love with New York City.
The home I created for myself;
A creative haven for kindred spirits.
I took Polaroids across Manhattan in 2017;
Vintage photographs of a kid, a fledgling.
I sat on my window ledge on East 42nd street, once again, something shifted.
And, as the sun greeted the morning, I knew it was the love of my life that I had met.
For all of the flaws we both possess;
This trifecta is heaven sent.
I hope there's a kid arriving at JFK right now,
And I hope he's dazzled by the city's sounds.
The car horns, the rattling subway grates;
A city for lovers, a city for the great;
New York City, a great, glorious, good place.
YOU ARE READING
LOYAL
Şiir'Loyal' is a collection of poems that explore a wide range of emotions. Written in the midst of a deep and hollow spell of isolation and quarantine, I needed to create something; anything that would be a bright light for me. So, I started writing th...
