Bathroom Monologue: Born Elsewhere

“No one should be born in this city. No one should grow up with all these museums, this food, these hospitals and cabs to take you everywhere. There’s always traffic, but you can get anywhere faster here than in a dirt town in the middle of nowhere. No child should grow up thinking this is the way it is in the rest of the world, or this is the way it should be everywhere, or that in some way they deserve this. They should grow up in Kansas or an Ottawa suburb or a Brazilian lumberjack village. Anywhere but here. Fix everything out there, but make them grow up there. Let them come here as adults, with dreams and strong bodies. Let them work for everything. Let them intern and temp and struggle to make purchase in the concrete jungle. Let everyone earn this place and it will be a miracle. Let them grow up here, grow poisoned and drunk on luxuries uncommon in the rest of the world, and no one will believe in miracles.”