[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

'Til 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 ninety minutes out, I get off

At some provincial hamlet I've never heard of

There's a real estate 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 bizarro revelation

That, like, Warren's whacked-out theory

Might deserve some exploration

I sit on my bed

And I realize I'm finally

Calm