if it kills me in poetry

catty-corner from Penn Station
is a fine fine all night restaurant
called the Tick Tock Diner
last time I was in New York
I sat there for five hours
watched the sunrise because the place
I could stay the night in Queens was
too far from the bus stop for the Bolt
i’m gonna make it
through this year
if it fucking kills me
the secret to the city that never sleeps
is 3:30 or 4 in the morning when
it almost dozes off but doesn’t
powers through the twilight on a skeleton crew
but manages to never sleep
when you’re from a little town
in the little heart of nowhere
it’s insane to imagine that four in the morning
could ever exist in the canyons of concrete where
all the street lights wash out ten billion stars
but the stillness of the dead hours almost happen
they almost happen
except for shitty radio stations played in diners
and third shifters wandering in to occasionally
hit on the burnt-out waitresses
but it happens and it’s there and
everything’s exhausted but it
all roars back by six AM
i’m gonna make it
though this fucking year
if it kills me
down the block is the television studio where
I was pulled from the crowd for an obscure
British comedy panel show that was taping there
the stoner comedian Hannibal Burress
told the audience that I looked shady
i’m gonna fucking make it
through this year
if it kills me
along the way to the Bolt bus station
there’s a little overlooked bronze plaque
that says this is the building where
Nikola Tesla died a pauper
in a squalid little apartment
that now would cost seven grand a month and
if that’s not America I don’t know what is
but i’m gonna make it
though this year
if it kills me