By Nathaniel Lachenmeyer
Gimme back Times Square gimme back peep show palaces and quarters get you a look and watered-down drinks and anybody can knife you at any time but why would they when you keep coming back with enough for a roll of quarters so then you walk back out into the flow of commuters with your heart pumping so hard you feel like it’s going to jump out of your throat and flop around on the street but act normal casual whatever you do act normal like you were never in there like you’re just part of the crowd speaking of which okay it wasn’t and there was some crazy shit in those glass cases behind the counter some visual and some more mechanical and there was other stuff you never saw that you had to ask for but at least there was a line you had to cross a door you had to be bold enough to open and other eyes you had to avoid and never meet or else who knows these days every asshole can find everything worse than everything worse than anything on their stupid little phones in the privacy of their unhappy houses after their wife or whatever goes to sleep or maybe not maybe they’re looking at that shit together if there even is a together anymore if everybody isn’t alone all the friggin time I wouldn’t know but I’ll tell you this that shit fucks with your head it will fuck your head right off your shoulders it will tear your thoughts to pieces and ruin any chance you ever had of being I don’t want to say normal so I’ll just say alright any chance at all you had in these crazy horrible fucking times of being alright and what good will fucking Disney do you then I’d like to know gimme me back Times Square.
Nathaniel Lachenmeyer is an award-winning disabled author of books for children and adults. His first book, The Outsider, which takes as its subject his late father’s struggles with schizophrenia and homelessness, was published by Broadway Books. Nathaniel has forthcoming/recently published poems, stories and essays with X-R-A-Y, Red Rock Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Potomac Review, Epiphany, Permafrost, About Place Journal, and DIAGRAM. Nathaniel lives outside Atlanta with his family. www.NathanielLachenmeyer.com.
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