to be here

Weeks now i have watched you froth into the asphalt as i try to decipher
the words and symbols painted on your concrete
and inked into your skin
you are a blood blister
hot and ready to pop
straining against your ropes
and sweat clouding your eyes
I have difficulty distinguishing your edges on the horizon
the sunlight highlighting sharp corners
and casting darker shadows
but i have been here all my life
and i know you as such.
your confluence straining
merging currents
a myriad of one million places
people
lives crammed together under a smogged dome
are your streets my veins, my hideaways?
my scars, your pain and failure?
You are a mosquito bite and i can't stop
tearing away at the skin of you
unearthing secrets
cobbled streets and an overturned ants' nest
of twisted streets and bloodied lanes
what makes you bristle in the mid afternoon heat?
curse and swear the days away
but you ring out until
nawd fo egde eth
draws you backwards over schedules,
make work projects
and congestion filling your air
is this what it means to be "city"
?
to be 'place'
?
to be here?