Living in a big city

Living in a big city
is like playing poker
waving your cards over your head
shouting
Look! Look!
I've got a full house
Can you beat it?

Living in a big city
is like pretending you like someone
more powerful than you are
in the hope
he could make you cooler,
richer and braver

Lights flicker
putting stains on your outfit
your self image
and your consciousness
mannequins never look at you
homeless always do

If you ask me
I don't admire skyscrapers
who does?
besides those who build them
and those who cheat in them

You could get stuck
in an elevator
in the fourteenth semester of art studies
in the filthiest toilet of a popular club
and nobody would ever recall
your eye color
or your favorite dish

You can make new friends every week
and tell them about your precious projects
they would nod
and tell you the same old story
how the love of their life
became a totally different person
on a one particular evening

You try making your eyes look larger
and larger
every day
choosing the most successful tutorials

Place cold, used teabags over your eyes
line your wet line with a light color
apply false eyelashes
follow your crease

When you wake up
your eyes shrink once again
and you consider moving to China
you've heard they admire Europeans
just so
for no reason at all

Your pores swell
and you urge to squeeze out
the growing despair with as much ardor
as your mother did
in a tremendous white room
on that foggy November morning

Big cities are bad for old people
all those stairs
too many hungry pigeons
too many buttons on the remote control
too many neighbors to hear your glasses fall
on the cold marble

Get up
and get away
as fast as you can
the line S41 will bring you
to the north to the east
to the south to the west
and then you'll fall asleep
and stop counting the stations

Wir bitten um Entschuldigung
f;r die Versp;tung