Ara Ara’s Mind

{AN: I wrote this Creative Non-fiction piece after a while of not writing non-fiction. I felt compelled to write this when I arrived to New York and saw how corrupted the city seemed, when it didn’t seem that way before to me. I felt a deep loss of what I knew to be New York and for the death of a beautiful, fruitful city. Enjoy.}

The city is beautiful. I wish people could see it. I wish I could explain it. I wish people would understand what I mean when I say the city holds its breath during the day and breathes at night. I wish I could explain the feeling in my chest that longs for the sound of a city. Feet hitting the pavement, the buzzing of the streetlights, the blinking sound of a car trying to turn, the sound of cars driving. The city never sleeps, but it does breathe, it has to.

Maybe I like the city for the silence. For the long stretch of nothing until a car starts and you’re reminded that you’re not alone. How empty and lonely it feels until you see the lights turn on in a house. There are so many stories here. So many lives and I can see that just from the lights outside a brownstone. From the graffiti on a gate of a closed down pharmacy. From the way the advertisements glow above the subway entrance.

The city is bare. It’s truth. It’s reality. It is the biggest show of humanity. It bustles and thrives and zooms, then calms and settles and relaxes just enough to show you what it really is. The city can’t sleep; when would it have time to breathe? When would it have time to do the things it wants to do? When would it have time to be itself? I understand that. I am that. Maybe that is what a city instills in you. Maybe that is what you’re supposed to get from the city.

I don’t know why everyone else likes the city. Maybe because it’s fast pace. Maybe because there’s so much to do. Maybe because it is accepting to be rich and white in a city. Maybe because you have to care so little about your surroundings. Maybe just because of the sheer volume of people. There are other things like jobs and money and family, but those aren’t the reasons you stay. Those are the reasons you go.

The city sizzles with emotion. You can only here it once the power goes out. Once night falls it’s hard to ignore. The rage, the pain, the disgust, the fear, the joy. Every emotion screaming, begging to be heard, begging to be felt. Not everyone can hear it, not everyone feels is. But those who are willing to listen, those who take the time, those who care; they will hear it. They will feel it. They will want to understand it.

The city is losing its spark. People walk around like they are invincible. They fell prey to the ads above the subway entrances, to the posters stapled to the lamp posts, to the repetitive news. The people here are stuck. They are stuck in time, stuck in thoughts from decades ago, stuck in the repetitive nature of this world. They don’t know freedom but walking around the streets of New York makes them feel like they do. They don’t know comfort, but the city still sings them to sleep with its screams. They don’t know anything, but the way they live makes them think they do.

New York is dying and it’s not its fault. The city is quelling, but what else can it do. The people who have moved here are misusing its power. There is nothing the city can do but scream.

I wish everyone could hear it. I wish everyone could feel it. I wish I could explain it in just the right fashion with just the right words. I wish I could hate the city for what it has to become, but I know the truth hides behind outdated radio stations and scaffolding.