Ode to a city.

Part I: The City of lights

And the city never sleeps.

Have you seen the lights, my love, have you seen the lights ever? Did you stare at the neon and think of the river of dreams? I once saw a picture of a woman standing on the city roads. The cars whizzed past her in indistinguishable blurs. The swarm of blurs surrounding her on a busy street, she stood by a river, didn’t she? Oh, images, images. How they rush into my head and make it uninhabitable. I once was a happy man. I have not known the city then. My friend used to say, it’s the most beautiful city in the world and I didn’t believe him. Then I went there. I walked her streets on broad daylight. And when the sun went down, the sun never did go down. It was after all, the city of lights.

My love, I have never walked this city, your hand in mine. My feet always looked for another, a whole lot smaller, pair of feet beside mine. I seeked. I did not find. I tried to shield myself from the daylight, I closed my eyes. With outstretched arms, I roamed about. Instead of you, only the city embraced me. The lights blinded me, o sweet blindness I love thee, I couldn’t see the city anymore. Instead, I felt it. I felt it, my love, as I have felt you all these days, with all my senses. I smelt your sweet pheromones, I touched your navel. Blood gushes, the flesh turns crimson red. The blinking blue lights make it purple. The flesh rots, the wound burns. The stink fills the air, the smoke clouds the billboards. The pain, the love drips into the cityscape slowly.

There’s always a dark corner, hidden amidst the bright streets. Always, well almost. I take a turn, look back and there it is, staring back at me. For me, darkness has always been important. I wouldn’t have known how light felt without it. Imagine yourself in the middle of a thousand searing lights, you close your beautiful eyes and suddenly a shower of blissful darkness, a sudden refuge from the world, from all the people. Isn’t it wonderful, my love? If not for darkness, how would one dream of landscapes and lost loves? The city always has a dark corner, amidst the bright streets. Have you seen them? Have you seen the lights ever, my love? Come, if you haven’t, come not to me, but to the city. Come to it on a rain soaked evening, the lights forming unworldly images in the little puddles of water, come to it in the daylight. It will give you light, it will give you darkness, it will give you respite. And probably, dreams. Then you can weave your own river, just as I am, now. Come, my love, to the city of lights.

The city that never sleeps.