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Written by Shaunte Shayde
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Lady Liberty [by Shaunte Shayde]
NY is beautiful. She has holes and rust. She beats and bleeds stronger than any city that I’ve ever known. She is strength. She is truth, and if you can’t face her she’ll break you. Respect her liberty. It’s yours.
NY is filled with hungry people. We hunger for the glory that she’s given us, and that hunger will only stop when our apple hearts stop beating. We beat for more, we bleed for life. NY.
There are billionaires walking beside people who can’t remember the last time they had five dollars.
There’s smoke and the smell of burnt pretzels. There are thousands of different activities going on at once.
People finding what they need, whether it's sushi, mountain climbing, peep shows or a Ferris wheel.
Everyone in their own heads, in their own universe right next to each other with no Godamn space and the smell of exhaust mixed with the latest cocoa-mopo frappuccino/ body wash/ J.Lo cologne…alone in NY.
NY is a dysfunctional family mixed with brilliance and flashing maudlin neon.
Almost inadequate bumps in the street. Hundreds of near misses with collisions between people/ between faces. Cars with purpose, lights with attitude, thousands of traces of bubblegum places, once chewed; now glued to a neglected, chipped sidewalk.
My NY.
Your NY.
No one’s NY.
It’s NY. It’s dark. It’s light. It’s wonderful. It’s unbearably too real at times. It’s the city with no definition and a meaning that everyone gets, the way that they need it, in their own way…and no one is ever spared.
She screams for attention, refuses to be ignored and wants to be left the fuck alone.
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