Standing upon my doorstep I turn around and face the city; I face this portion of the world that I am selfish enough to call mine. 

I claim the smog, the shops, the roads, & the buildings that stretch higher and higher as you descend your being even further into this concrete land. 

It is in that moment that I realize I am the buildings, I am that one trying to outdo the other just as Paris must've been trying to outdo New York with their Eiffel Tower. 

I am the novelist competing against the poet, the college applicants who are all rallying for a spot in Yale, I am the clouds fighting against the sun, fighting to conceal my better, brighter, opponent. 

 But also, I am fixated by an illusion that we built up. Nothing is ever really mine or yours, or ours; and if all we are is the competition we formulate against those who inhabit this earth the same, then what will be left of our titles, our honor, our ever-decreasing legacy? 

Tell me.

What will be left of us?