It’s about taking it in more than thinking, or processing.
The idea of new New York, new for you, new for me, new for him.
New York may be what you make of it, but only after it’s told you what you want
You’re looking around because you have no idea where you are
Looking around because everything is fascinating
New New York is captivating in probably much the same way as an extramarital affair –
The way it enchants, disrupts your life, turns out all the drawers
A reprise from where you came from, that old crone of a hometown you’re sick of
With those people who all seem to look the same, talk the same, live the same
But in keeping with the adulterous tradition, New New York is subversive, seductive, elusive –
Because New New York soon becomes just New York,
And soon after that, Old New York
That used to be away from a home, towards a future
Now it’s towards home, and maybe it’s still towards a future
But it’s a different future, colored inexplicably by experiences
With people who I didn’t know, streets that I hadn’t yet met
Someone told me, back in August, back in that 11th street
“You’re a New Yorker when you remember something as it was
Rather than how it is”
I remember the unfinished wiry sinews of the freedom tower [point south], taunting the sky
The scaffolding around Rite-Aid, the homeless people who lived underneath it
In a sort of disenchanted adult sleepover – fort included
The chicken and waffles that went out of business because – well it was probably a drug front anyways
I don’t really feel like a New Yorker though
Probably because that’s an uninspired aphorism anyways
I feel more like an interloper
Established, somewhat knowledgeable, but not a part of it
Separate – and tenuously so
Like at any moment if anyone wanted they could call me out –
“This man is a fraud!” or maybe they’d make a citizen’s arrest
For some unspoken trespass, unwitting breach of contract that
I don’t ever remember signing
Perhaps the surest sign of a truly incredible thing
Is its ability to surprise you, to play that card-up-its-sleeve that you thought you accounted for
But that you, of course, couldn’t account for –
Its ability to transform itself in an instant
From something mundane into something extraordinary,
Without ever changing anything at all
Sidelining any need for you to make like you belong there
It becomes again about taking it in –
And you realize again that you really don’t know anything about New York
