Vacant Vision

This was a stream of consciousness that occurred, and I tried to edit the best I could along the way. Semi-biographical. I cannot say much else, glad that I finally have something to put up!

They call this the city of dreams. While I never felt an opposition to that statement, I was always aware of the true grit that lay beneath. Beneath the limitless wonders of the skyscrapers, the 24 hour light service at Times Square, the loud cries of fire trucks in the middle of the night, the metro north passing by, this city glared its teeth. The teeth were hardly present for those who came on multi-thousand dollar trips, or those privileged few in the gentrified Bowery of Manhattan and Carnegie Hill. No. The teeth were almost like a tale, a tale for the minorities that were the back bone of the 5 borough city for so long. Beyond the wealth of 5^th avenue and tourist attraction Manhattan, the city was another entity. My city, she was a cleverly disguised w***e, with enough glitter and makeup to reel in the masses. With enough knowledge and wit to seduce newcomers, enough status to bring in the corporate, and of course, just enough skin revealed to have the dollars falling into her pockets. When I was younger, I hoped that peeling off the makeup will reveal a more beautiful person underneath… But the more I peeled away that surface, the uglier and more beastly she became. I was disgusted, terrified, disappointed that she was not what I wanted her to be.

I want to see her as everyone else does: beautiful, rough on the surface, but with good intentions and limitless possibilities. I cannot unsee the ugliness of her. I don’t know when it happened, but I was very young when it did. The moment where living in New York City wasn’t a tool to show how cool you were to tourists. It was never glamorous. It always seemed bleak. Even so, I loved where I lived. I loved my friends. I just could not understand why I was sad. Was it because I expected more? Maybe it was because I felt lonely, even when I was with family, or friends, I felt alone. It was like being in a room with wax sculptures; they appear human, but they weren’t alive. At the young age of 6, I couldn’t comprehend the feelings or the thoughts that I was experiencing.  At 7, the world just seemed too abstract and confusing. I didn’t want to live anymore, and contemplated how I can leave this world, or at least, this life. Of course I did not quite have the sophistication to come with a sufficient plan. I would ask her, looking into the ugly face underneath the beautiful art, how I should go about doing something this grand. I was too afraid of the roof, too afraid of hurting myself. With a snide look, and only vacant stares to give back to me, I just settled with sitting in the street… Sitting, waiting for the traffic that I hoped would free me from having to exist in this world. Of course, the driver in the approaching car saw me from a distance. Surely that person would have stopped, but before it was even 20 feet away, someone had grabbed my hand and pulled me off the asphalt road. My head was spinning. I was still alive, and now, there was an audience. Something I had not accounted for. I looked up to see her smug face, still smiling with satisfaction. I wanted to hit her, to kill her. I wanted to grab her face and yank the skin off, exposing the rotten thing underneath. What I wanted most though, was to be gone from this world.

Author's Note

Please point out grammar errors and other mistakes, which I would love to improve on. Also what do you think? I am pretty famous amongst the English staff for having wordy sentences.

Critiques, thoughts, reactions, emotions felt, all are welcomed, and thank you for reading!