Large City Poem

Large city, you've gridded me in.

I had to give you my bank account and blood type.

you dragged my heart under the tracks over the Williamsburg Bridge on the L train

at Rush Hour.

Large city, you said you loved me.

Why did you slam the door?

I love you, I love you too.

I have to get away from you, 

I have to get back.

Large city, you are an energy-overdose-vitacap I swallow and digest 

in the time it takes to walk from 4th to 14th-

Large city, I heard you the first time.

I heard you the first time, 

you don't need to scream.

Large city, I heard you the first time.

Give me some rest.

Large city, why do I come back to you when you say the same thing over

and over, running across my mind like

the Nasdaq ticker in Times Square?

Large city, Weekends in the country just aren't the same without you.

Did you feel the earthquake at 14th and 1st?

Did you feel the hurricane, the tornado, 

whirling us in and spitting us out the Empire State, the Statue of Liberty?

I climbed to her crown once, looked out the top.

Her eyes were tiny from inside.

Her staircase was petite, of course, 

she was French!

She wore high heels under her long dress

and still wasn't as tall as you.

You are not a one-woman city

you are made of revolving doors men can push me through

one to the next

Large city, it isn't hard to hold a door open when all you have to do

is push-

Large city I wrote your name in Sharpie

on the white t-shirt I always wear

like a bullet-proof vest

over the heart

I gave to you.