The Actual City

by Philip Nikolayev

You keep two maps of the city folded under your ribs.
One is the glossy one they hand you at the airport,
all skyline, museums, the river as a vein of gold.
The other is drawn by footsteps of need.
On that one you circle the church basement
that serves as a food pantry for three hours on Tuesdays.
You underline the supermarket that waits until night
to offer bruised fruit you can barely afford.
You mark with a star the ESL classroom above the laundromat,
where your tongue beats its wings like a hurt bird.
You memorize the faces of the bus drivers who lower
the step when you arrive breathless, overburdened.
Parks are no longer green but graded zones of risk:
this bench is safe until dusk, that corner is a hole
in the world. In red you trace the office
where the clerk once lifted her eyes, spoke slowly,
each syllable a fragile bridge toward you.
Your city is stitched from want and small permissions,
from streets your panic keeps blank and unnamed,
from alleys your hope always sketches back into existence.
In impressive buildings you never enter, they legislate
against your presence, they call you a crisis,
passing bills that turn doorways into traps.
Yet here, on this corner, the world pauses
for your breath and a total stranger says,
Take your time, I’m here, and the whole city
brightens and darkens at the same moment inside you.