By Misti Velvet Rainwater
Date: 29 August 2000

Looking Up

walking the streets of the Upper East side
I felt dissatisfied and small and gritty
there I was, finally, in the city I had dreamed of
and longed for all my life
all the way from texas
dusty and small with John Travolta on my wall
and fall after fall with nothing but football games
to distinguish the autumn from the summer...

I was with you
but not really
I was looking up
feeling dizzy and bitter
because Manhattan had grown up without my help
Broadway knew nothing of my tap dance recitals
and beauty pageants and letters to the editors
and stacks of spiral notebooks
filled with stories and poems
Times Square sold out to Mike Eisner without my permission
and the human condition
was not as dignified as I had hoped
it would be
I was drowning in a sea
of What Will Never Be
and What Could Have Been
if only I had been born closer
to the center
I had no business being born
in Bridgeport, Texas
in 1973

my dream was finally realized
but I wanted my dream back
because the reality was too brutal
what use do I have for yuppies with cell phones
and GAP crap
and whoa...hold up...what about Generation X?
so much hype?
because the yuppy types look too young to be Baby Boomers
the rumors were FALSE!
I knew it!
screw it...I refuse to sell out
even though I lack that New York sophistication
and separation from inner child ideologies

what a pilgrimmage, what a trip
so much emptiness masked with
excellent PR

but then we found it
and there it was
St. Patrick's Cathedral...right there in the midst
of all the tainted madness
and so we walked up the steps
and walked through the door
and it was more than I deserved
rows of lit candles
and incense blooming
and people praying from wooden pews
and stained glass going way up high

I didn't feel like I had the right to sit down
and witness the magic
I felt like my feet should be bleeding
and my clothes should be tattered
and my face should be covered in ash
I felt like I should be drowning in holy water
or burning on a funeral pyre
the guilt was so tangible
I could have choked
or broken into a million tiny
irregular pieces

...so I sat down and stared ahead and up
and you sat down beside me
and I told you I couldn't stare too long or else
I would cry
and you walked with me to the altar
and you helped me find
a candle to light
for my uncle Greg

the stained glass was so impossibly blue
and there was so much to the architecture
and to me
and to you
and you knew my feelings were crystallized
you realized the depth and the sincerity
you knew I was sorry and contrite
and wanted to be a part of the Light
as opposed to apart
from the Light
and oh, I know it's a cliche
but you were like Jesus to me then
you gave me the love I didn't deserve
you held my hand and told me
that the reason the ceiling was so high
and the windows and details so ornate
was because
they want us to look up
and see heaven
as something to aspire to

there could have been a choir of angels that day
there could have been a radiant throne
and more love than I have ever known
since conception
but the reception I found in your simple grace
was enough
heaven
for me to aspire to.

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