City

The steam from the pavement rises, rain on a hot day. A little light relief. The chatter of the streets bounces off the skyscrapers. Where do the lonely go to find relief? Some sleazy bar? Slip under a strangers sheets, all to soon the thrill is gone, emptiness lingers on.

Somewhere in this city I meld into the clan, a thousand faces and eyes all detached have glanced my way, none met my eye or looked long enough to get a glimpse of who I am, I do the same thing. We are trained not to stare, some forget and look far to long and then paranoia on those looked upon seeps out and they fear the strangers glaze. But in the city it’s faceless and we move on and on.

Rats in a cage all scurrying to the next meeting, the next lunch, the next afternoon of sin and vice. We are all breathing in the city’s poison and all breathing out discontent. Maybe that’s an overstatement but no one I know is happy with their lot. It’s just a part of the human condition to always want more than what we’ve got. Never satisfied, never full, always slightly hungry, even though most of us have more than what we need. It’s a consumer market and in the city all the gluttons are on display. Look in any storefront and you’ll see for yourself, consumerism dissipates this mad envy. Locking in full frontal on the poor making sure that the poor stay poor by feeding them the myth that happiness is a product.

At night this harbour gets quiet. All the ferry’s have stoped all the workers have gone home. It is then that this city truly breathes. When it’s empty, then it feels like home to me.

I guess it’s because at my core I’m a country girl and I can’t stand the lack of space. I wasn’t raised on a farm I was a townie, but space was never far away. Just across the road was 200 acres to roam in, all I had to do was look out for the bul, he was mean. I knew freedom there.

The lights from the skyscrapers kiss the waves that gently lap against the quay. The bridge as per usual is all lit up and it’s glow filters into the harbour below. Do others see this place like this? I don’t know. But you never read about her this way. Our city at night all peaceful, all still beauty in relief.

Some one asked me not long ago if I think of this city s my home town? Do I feel like she is mine? I answered no. I can’t connect with the rush. To belong I feel like I’d have to loose part of myself, the part that craves space and I’m not prepared to do that it would feel like losing part of my soul. The one who sits here tonight watching the play of light on water. This city isn’t who I am, she’s all slutted up with nowhere to go.

Have you ever seen her before we disgraced her face, before we cut into her. Trees and hills lined the harbour. Did you know that where the Tank Stream Arcade now stands was a stream? Water died to create what we now walk upon. Maybe one day it will rebel and break free, reclaim what we took away, the sea and streams in revolt. So beautiful it was what we lost.

A wind soft and pure, smelling of salt brushes my skin. This is my city when she is like this, the way she is tonight. But in a few hours this will disappear and again she’ll be transformed into a whore. Maybe if reincarnation exists I knew her way back when she still had her natural skin, maybe that’s why I feel so detached from what I see and remain after the others have gone to see her as I do now. Time for me to move out of the way of the ensuing crowds. Out of the way of the rush-hour, but come tonight I’ll be back and I will see her once more the way I know her to be. Light on the harbour come out to play.

© Julie Patterson