bored at the café on a slow monday night

It felt like somewhere else

for a moment,

glancing out the front door to see the

police sirens

            flashing

reminded me of neon lights and advertisements

flashing across a

massive wall of billboards—

New York City was good to me:

with the attractive and superior students

on campus at Columbia…

with the hipsters in Brooklyn,

hustling along and

dodging

each other

             as if they were

raindrops

across the window of a

   moving car…

as if none of these people were

in love with their own neighborhood

like I was.

And I was in love.

Even with the cool kids walking in front of me

puffing from their cigarettes

and blowing into my face,

coating my clothes and hair with

a layer of stink,

I was still in love.

            The next moment,

I turned the corner and was blinded by

Times Square.

My eyes already exhausted

and stinging

from the second-hand smoke,

it was too much for them to take in all the

the neon lights and advertisements

flashing across a

massive wall of billboards,

telling me what I need

and what I want.

And how could they know—?

            I recall all of this,

sitting outside the restaurant

on the curb,

the cold throbbing in my fingers

and my ears,

relieved to find that the

            flashing

police sirens were fading away.

I guess the lights hurt my eyes.

But maybe Manhattan’s billboards

have a better idea of what I need

and what I want

than I do myself.

-rae