It is surprisingly similar. In many ways. The intangible pressures and silent dangers. The glamorous possibilities. The extreme mood swings and constant inconveniences. The giant chasms in wealth distribution like the mouth of a bloody river. The obsession with quick fitness and quick sex and quick money and little time. Some wallow in the excesses. Some choke on the drought and hunger. These inverted jungle destinations reveal an odd bevy of dreamers and maniacs and freaks and ex wives and young hustlers and tan lunatics searching for an allusive serum for the full blown virus camouflaged as living.
People ask all the time ‘don’t you miss it?’
A resounding yes. Yes I miss all her destructive beauty. The sidewalks and crosswalks and vagrants and maniacs and dumb entrepreneurs and scammers and shoe shined money men and heroic pizza slices and brilliantly branded to go cups and naïve aspiration on the cuff links and muffled inspiration loud from the passing car speakers and expertly layered haircuts with fuck you bangs and lights out calamity always lingering and alpha jocks with doctorate degrees and crypto in the bank racing around the 6 mile Central Park loop and wispy nymphs studying a bottle of California Rose while ensconced at Dime Square and elegantly served fourteen dollar pour overs under a geranium filled skylight two blocks from a lonely train station in Bushwick and rotten meatloaf spread across the limping subway cars and death defying kick flips between the 145th street platforms and a perfectly crescendoed battalion of black bulletproof Uber SUV vehicles lined up outside the Met on a rainy night in spring waiting for the latest meteor shower to end. I miss it all.
But then the jungle. The slow drawl of a gambling death and destiny wildly circumvented. The way a newly strung hammock with holes can destroy a small business already on the rocks. Coffee like blood and rain. The long bending and churning shades of equatorial green that erupts from a nameless hill in the near distance evoking songs of dread and renewal. Simultaneously. The rains always come. The ocean like an angry pimp. The dirt wafting up from a narrow crater filled road to choke and molest and subjugate and develop and slowly crucify any drops of civility that stubbornly lingers. The music plays steady from a lone vintage speaker propped upon a thick polished Guanacaste table and I look into the dull eyes of vipers and palms and fallen white flowers stomped upon the road like a dozen angels whom didn’t quite make it; and I look long down a familiar road with no stop signs and gaze at an insecure jungle elite marching in ripped blue jeans and rubbing blistered palms expressing an irrational smile across a sweaty brown face that shamelessly reveals no plans and no security and no prospects walking easily into a migrant town vacant of good women and tasty wine and local celebrity and warranted fuss.
These inverted jungle homes pressed against each other like runaway teenage lovers deep in the club at dawn ready to fuck and nobody cares.
People ask do you miss it and I respond ‘they are oddly similar.’
