Post-New York Post

The post that should be here is the post-New York post. I would tell you all about the wondrous joy going to New York was for me. I would tell you about how it did change me, how every street I walked on was like a dream and like going back to a home I didn't know I was missing. New York. A city of noise; cars honking, radios on shoulders pumping hip-hop, the clang and grind of the garbage trucks.

I could tell you about the spring, how every corner I turned seemed to shelter another hidden park, these gems inside a giant dark stone of a city. Parks with blooming cherry trees and tulips, brightly painted chairs and tables, lovers eating gelato and old men playing cards.

I could tell you about performing my poetry at a poetry slam night in Manhattan only to discover... my poetry isn't exactly slam material and I don't even really know what slam poetry is. I got on stage after listening through countless other poets who all seem angry with the world and have been essentially spewing their guts out in a cathartic stream of words. I was so nervous and I tried to hold it together, but I knew it wasn't where I belonged, and walking home (to the hotel) I felt so small but I was glad any ways because now I could say I debuted my poetry in New York City.

The countless hours spent wandering the streets from the depths of Greenwich village to the Upper East side, Central park to Chelsea. I stared at the doors of the houses where one Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg had lived, I wanted so bad to feel something standing there on 15th and 20th Streets.... I wanted some flash, an insight, a sign from above perhaps. Nothing happened though. So I went to Cafe Wha? and listened to the house band and danced my butt off, then walked back to my room, it was 1:30am on Friday April 1st and it was still 20 degrees outside, I ate a slice of pizza and when I got back to the hotel I slept more soundly then I had slept in a long long time.