It was spring. It was break. I was broke and heartbroken and from the top of the Empire State Building it all looked the same to me -- lights in every direction, peole being bought and sold and passed around and handed down, an endless repetition of an endless tradition that had been going strong for decades without any help from me.
They -- we -- all turned out for St. Patrick's Day, hordes of greenery dancing past the greasy pizzerias and hopeful souvenir shops and jaded convenience stores and 25-cent peep-show coliseums. High school bands paraded playing Sousa on xylophone. It didn't have much to do with anything; it was a celebration of celebration without substance, a tribute to the convention of convention. A black man wore a "Kiss me I'm Irish" shirt, but nobody seemed to mind. He was part of the parade too, and so was I, tramping around Manhattan, another random walker in the structured chaos of New York.
That night, numb from alcohol, disappointment and incessant neon, I leaned agaisnt a parking meter and watched the taxis blink off toward SoHo. I wrote some poetry that illegible once I was sober, but I vaguely recall believing it at the time. Conscience is hard-earned. I remember that line. It's easy enough to say but harder to savor.
Fantasylands have their price. Cleavage hangs above Fifth Avenue with a sinisterly sexual smile: "It must be magic." Right, but the magic is that no matter how much it's been around, it keeps selling. For every Broadway musical and dramatic presentation around Times Square there are seven deadly sins to keep your mind off it; for every art exhibit, zoo enclosure and historical museum there must be 50 ways to leave your lover.
The City of Lust exists to slake, but thirst is a pattern without a solution. We jump in the down elevator; the acceleration sends us spinning upward and then when the ride stops we're weak in the knees, pulled relentlessly down to earth. So do it again -- but every start has its stop. We purchase infatuation and pay with regret.
So I looked up from the cigarette butts and saw an unforgiving skyline, and the impersonal billboard smiles watched over me like window washers gazing at soap bubbles. I blinked.
Desire is timeless. They sold it and I bought it. And I am ashamed.