FicWad

Everything here is made from paint; it is malleable and it's wet. New York is an expressionist, tonal, surreal painting. A kaleidoscopic haze of cerulean blue and crimson red meld together as the days drone on until they become nothing more than an autumnal glaze, anchored with a white wash of black.

Unforeseen enticements of the city surround me, attempting to feed my insatiable hunger before taking hold of me, enveloping me whole, ravaging my senses. Phosphorescent lights beckon me like sirens hailing Odysseus as I kick my converse against the sodium cement. Briskly jostling through the streets I quicken my pace, swearing under my breath at my apparent tardiness for the most important discussion of my life to date.
Emerging from the pretentiously ostentatious conference hall I began to deflate, flashbacks from mere moments ago rest on the ridges of my skull. Greasy, grubby men in patent suits tell me that I lack depth, that my art is meaningless and unnecessary. They tell me that I am just a kid with a cliched dream of finding myself in the big city. With a kiss goodbye and phatic wave they tell me that I am loosing myself, that my art has no explanation.

Dings of the overflowing subway carriage coupled with the ring of dazed tourists pleading for directions from people that don't give them a second glance, the hysteric buzz is driving me insane. This hiss and smoke spewing from the city's mouth that has such deep vibrations and a poignant, penetrating, fractal beat, morphs into a deranged lullaby and soon I am unable to sleep without it's baring. I become increasingly aware that the city is consuming me, devouring every last glimpse of me being until I am nothing more than the very definition of a human. I realize that I am insignificant in this vast pool of unscathed talent that pulses and groans under the weight of it all. And then I am falling. Ripping through the clouds I am a torrent of water pouring from the eyes of a sixteen year old that didn't get a car for their birthday and I finally allow myself to see the city for what it really is: a conscious entity ejecting smog, mewling the whispered words of long forgotten dreams of a city that never sleeps and churning out self entitled importance. Each step I take chips away at the pavement until all the flesh and cartilage has been worn away, leaving on the sharp edges to scrape and grind against one another as the sinew cracks against the glaring concrete.
Echoing through my mind are the pleading, moaning, bloated words of their corporately explicit sermon. Their seemingly unimportant quips are taking their toll, dampening my flow, condensing my brush strokes into pitiable nothings. Bracing myself I build up my walls, insults and 'constructive criticism' ricocheting off the sides because art needs no explanation. I know that now.

Drifting on the breeze like a gull, the wind whipping at my hair and tugging at my clothes I am hovering intangibly on the pure notion of flight. And then I am speaking, no, babbling. Broad sweeping strokes fortuitously elude the subject matter until there is nothing but a caged syllable, swinging on crystalline bars until my words evaporate and condense into some form of art.

Portrayed to the public by the grimy, off white folds of a map the swirling maze of contradictions that is New York lay sprawled out before me: wild and untamed, hectic yet obsolete, debauched but somehow still abstinent. I remove my makeshift blindfold so that I can see a facade of hope illuminated by a neon sign and the faded debris of my former shell, washed up from a river of spit. I came to New York to find myself but ended up a tongue tied mass of unanswered question and unfulfilled dreams. Life is not a coming of age film where the acclaimed protagonist realizes the conformity of the masses and rebels against the sate only to live happily ever after in the end. Life is living breathing art.

And art needs no explanation.