relocation in poetry

You get on the bus to L.A. because
you think you’re already perfect to be a star
when you get off she disabuses you of those notions.
You go to New York City because you know
you can’t make it alone and when she has time to talk
she tells you that you’re right.
You get to the big city
when everyone’s moving to the bigger city
or at least moving to a different big city
that’s not as expensive to live in.
Everybody used to move out to the suburbs to have kids
now everybody’s gentrifying the down-towns again to
get away from all those assholes’ boring kids.
The cities breathe us in like oxygen
the cities breathe us out like carbon dioxide
the cities can’t live without the people but
any given generation they will easily outlast
we’ll learn it from the future
we’ve learned it from the past.
The cities talk if you listen but
you might not always want to hear
what they have to say on
any given day.