The Sex of My City

If Chicago were a woman, I think she'd be classic Beat feminist...

dark eyes, raven black bob and a cozy down to earth way below the intimidating beam of her gaze...She doesn't want shallow glory, just respect for her humanity and privacy. A stand out, stand-alone holding tight to her humility and beauty. Leave her in peace, to ruminate and relax in a creaky porch swing silence kind of way.  

She has a depressive personality, massive and present in the curl of her lips, the sarcastic hum she responds to jokes with. While the rude or passive commentary she receives makes the hairs on her neck stand stiff, she swallows her disgust and reminds herself that her pulsing blood does not depend on the approval of others to flow. So, she shrugs it off, sips her coffee and ponders things that you’d only find in the center of flatland, grass higher than your knees, dewy and damp on bare arms and bald feet…thoughts like how deep could you sink into the soil from the weight of your body as it lays still, if they had an address, where would you send your inquisitions to a planet? 

So deep deep down in the heart of herself is something so majestic but not demanding you know it by shouting it high and heavy with her hair and her clothes and her friends, but with those eyes, those dark heavy eyes that twirl and twitch among the many surroundings of her world, the subtle sparkles in the sidewalk concrete that the sun will sometimes show…

I want to grow old there, in the middle of the spider-webbing cracks of the sidewalks, in the moist heat and frigid cold, in the way the snow heaps and the feel of the chilly waters that flood our basement during rain storms on the soles of my feet. 

I want to raise my children there, see them entranced by the swirling siren lights, the frosty orange glaze over the sky, the cricket chirps and damp grass dawns, the way the moisture grips each strand of coarse, black hair until it clots and curls, the way the evenings glow peach, sometimes a diluted cherry, over the heads of the kids rampaging through the center of the streets the elder babysitters that collapse on front steps and lawn chairs propped on porches, chatting over Newport’s, a peripheral eye on the whereabouts of their most precious relatives. 

Even the damages, even the shriek of a gunshot when I’m half asleep, the booming bass so loud you don’t even know what song is playing, the crisp white gym shoes and perfect waves on a pretty boy's head doused in oils that make it shine in the street lights, the way they hold a pocket when they run so their baggy jeans don’t make them stumble, the way they all sound so similar, their conversations winding into a roar of hood accents, four letter words, that friendly gesture of a clasped hand and the nickname "Cuz"  that makes every stranger seem like blood, like we all emerged from a similar womb, we all shared the same childhood, saw the same things, feel the same way but conjoin like puzzle pieces that make one whole even if separately we don’t appear as if we’d ever fit. 

On the CTA or the El, I see them all, the relaxed sagging in their brows as they spread their knees, lower their heads, and let the events of the day lead them into determining an action for their future…if I look hard enough at the soil brown or cotton candy pink tones of so much flesh bunched in one small space I know we all see it the same. 

Regardless of our societal corners we can each peek toward the middle and see a similarity there. We were all there when things fell apart when things appeared to be rebuilt but were soon discovered behind a slender rope struggling to hold a partition over what has obviously been determined to be an impossible task. 

How can you not love it? 

I love it like I love a heavy flow if the month allows it, like I love a long walk even if I have nowhere to go, like I love overhearing a stranger say something so mind altering, yet discuss it so casual as if these thoughts of theirs were as generic as describing water as wet.

From fingertips to follicles it stings, tugs at my optical nerves until it hurts to even recall the visual…so lovely for something to have such a massive hold on my emotions. 

How could I demand anything more than a moment with my ear to the concrete, the thud of millions of footsteps and the pouring roar of traffic, airplanes, unintelligible conversations. I want to hear them all, every moment of words caught by this one square of Chicago's sidewalk, this one square that stands the weight of strangers. Add a slender description of the people speaking the words: short and chubby girl in a red pea-coat, scrawny pale white boy with a faux-hawk, caramel brown skin woman with heavy frizzy curls and a cellphone stuck against her ear. 

When it comes to my city, I’m open with my desires. My mouth moistens to its masculinity, my heart flips to its femininity…

but I’m no fan of the separation, the way each side is premiered in such polarizing ways. I stalk the city streets, the crumbling femininity, the glowing growl of the masculinity, and I wonder often why both edges don’t intertwine, love each other, care for each other…as parents would, as twin siblings would…as always there's a lean toward the more prominent, more independent and successful.