[DEB]
So:
I am on the 6 train heading uptown
To my lit. professor's office
It’s, like, light years off of campus
Don’t ask me why
I’m sandwiched in-between this guy
Who’s literally drooling
And some European hipster who—well let's be honest—
Smells
Woody Allen heard Gershwin in the air
When he thought "Manhattan"
Well I’m not so impressed:
I hear like Philip Glass at best
I wish I could take a second to get
Calm...

But it’s not working
'Cause like clearly I'm a magnet
For a special breed of psycho
Who think being weird's
A valuable use of time
And my notebook likes to wander
On its own across the city
Taking with it my whole thesis
Which I need to write, like, now
I don't remember the Muppets getting hives
When they took Manhattan
But my own diagnosis
Is I'm creeping toward psychosis
'Cause I cannot find a place to get
Calm...
It's really hard
You know, I tried to take up yoga
But you'd be surprised how many folks
Don't think deodorant is Zen
I even saw a life coach who told me
I should breathe
"Just breathe"
But every time I took in a breath
I visualized that life coach's death:
She's having brunch at Café Pierre
And she's choking and choking and choking and choking
Till finally she's...calm

I'm sorry

Anyway: I get to my professor's
And he sits me down and tells me
That my thesis on Virginia Woolf
Feels somehow "false"
I tell him what I’m working from
Is not so much a thesis
As the fact that she went crazy and that seems, well...
Apropos
My professor just tosses back his head...
And a dry Manhattan
I’m wondering which will kill him quicker—
The Big Apple or the liquor?—
When suddenly I panic and I tell myself
I must get someplace calm
I up and run toward Penn station
Like I'd swear my head was ready to blow
And I hop a train to Jersey
Just as fast as any person can go
Then 90 minutes out, I get off
At some provincial hamlet I’ve never heard of
There’s a real state office right on the block
I can afford a two bedroom, I go into shock
I think, "what the heck."
I write a check
Cause there’s sunlight, and closets, and laundry
But mostly it’s calm
Calm
Calm
Calm

Calm
Really calm
Strangely calm
Like, Times-Square-at-5 A.M. calm
Like, totally-freak-me-out calm
Like, I’m-gonna-slowly-go-crazy-and-throw-myself-off-of-the-balcony calm

Damn it

So: I tear up my deposit
And I head back to Penn station
Of course, the subway’s broken
So I walk four miles home
And like fourteen hours later
I get back to my apartment
With my crazy spastic roommates
And a room, well, of my own
I’ve got this black and white poster on my wall
That says “My Manhattan”
And I give it the finger
But I let my gaze linger
And I notice how the people
Look like tiny specks of gray
All haphazardly arranged
Just like they were in that Monet
And suddenly I'm struck by this bizarre-o revelation
That, like, Warren's whacked-out theory
Might deserve some exploration
I sit on my bed
And I realize I’m finally
Calm