To New York or Modern Gods | Teen Ink

To New York or Modern Gods

June 30, 2024
By FranciscoMGomez BRONZE, Santa Maria, Other
FranciscoMGomez BRONZE, Santa Maria, Other
1 article 0 photos 0 comments

I think I was born with an iconoclast complex.
After a long pilgrimage from South to North
When I put my lips onto the Big Apple,
And bit off all that I could chew
Just to spit it out on the shivering concrete,
Laughing at the blinding lights, nervous, giddy,
Fleeing into the crowded, starless night.

It preached, grinning through skyscraper fangs
Hissing through its thousand pavement tongues,
It told me of its legends, those filled with
Needles and veins, great aspirations and chalky powders:
The nosebleed megalomaniac's creed.

Spying like the CIA, hooked on MDMA and Adderall
It promised I could be the lucky one before I turn twenty-seven
If I'm willing to leave a piece of me as collateral.

After bitter hours of hearing its whispers
Creeping through the smell of smog and cigarette butts on the sidewalks,
After the croaking of the gutters and the threatening rustle of the scaffolding
Had me sickened to the core, I then replied, shielding myself from it's wintry breath:
(And don't we all have a thing for defying Gods?)
"It's no use, I've sold my soul to other devils!" 


The author's comments:

This was inspired by my short time in New York City for an event, my first visit to the United States, trying to grapple with the privilege that was being there on my school's payroll and reconciling what the city really was. It was all an odyssey to me, my first big adventure, and I had been aching to write about it. I joke that it came to me in a dream, one fine morning a few months after my return, and in my mind it was meant to be this epic poem detailing my exploits, but in the end, as I typed away on my way to school, this is what came out, a reply to my travel buddies who were bedazzled by the skyscrapers, the glitz and the glamour, an attempt to get to the core of what the trip was really all about.


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