Look at this cocky bastard.
Ready to take on all of Chicago.
Will his dreams freeze over like Lake Michigan?
Or will his ego boil these same waters?

There will be lots of good times.
Collective theater projects that become Critic's Choice in the Reader.
Ranting at the Green Mill during the birth of the poetry slam.
Pornographic puppetry at Second City.

There will be times spent in dark corners of smelly apartments.
Plenty of unemployed days that started at 5PM and ended at 5AM
Talking shit after hours in a grimy bar in Wicker Park with Mike the door guy
who played in a death metal band called Black Hand.

He will never have a serious girlfriend in the 10 years he lives here.
He will fall in love a hundred times.
He will fall on his ass on the icy sidewalks.
He will fall on his ass at a book release party at Quimby's where he works.
He will wake up with his glasses duct taped together the next morning.

He will eventually meet a girl from New York City.
He will move there to be with her.
He will think of Chicago fondly.
The city that took his 20's and forged a humble man.