Living in New York City is like choosing your own special version of Stockholm syndrome.
Sure, I decided to move here but the city decided to enslave me.
I fall in love with its autumn glory,
the almost-solitude of various parks,
the fact that I can always be drunk
and still get home.
I fall in love with a place that puts me
in a cityscape cage.
It gives me very little freedom
I’m just trying to survive –
– for some absurd reason I want to stay alive in the cage!
Every time I think the cage is expanding – it snaps those windows of opportunity shut the minute I figured out how to get on the windowsill.
I can’t stretch out my legs – the cage closes in so tight that I find myself contorting to make sure the cage is able to smother me! My limbs are forced at awkward angles within the cage and I cry in desperation,
“Smother me more! Intoxicate me further!
I will eat and I will breathe if only you keep me here!”
The thing is I know my love and inspiration are abused.
AND I LOVE IT!
I can’t think of anything else.
I am a conscious and willing victim of this Stockholm syndrome.
My art becomes a tribute to my captor: “New York, New York one helluva a town.” I write about it, I sleep it, I dream it, I breathe it and still at the end of the day, I think I should have a lot to say, because I live in New York City! But what does that mean really? It feels like a black hole. I spend my time trying to get along with it simply so that it doesn’t swallow me up at any given second with any given gust of wind. I want to stay here and attempt to consume the city as it consumes me! Glorify the abuse. “If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere!” If I’m lucky I’ll make human contact – “My darling captor, beautiful lights, just open the cage so I can at least go on a date!” But everyone has a cage. My once in a blue moon date has a cage, my boss has a cage – Hell, the art I create has a cage. So I sit on the subway, staring at my phone on my way home.
Sleep when I get there,
wake up tomorrow
embrace the cage.
