I am 23, the year of the iron birthday, the gate of darkness. I

Host:
The city at night was a restless thing — its streets glimmering with rain, its air thick with the sound of tired taxis and the distant hum of insomnia. Somewhere between the halo of a streetlamp and the whisper of an alley cat, time felt suspended, like a pulse caught between beats.

Jack stood beneath the flickering neon of an old pharmacy sign, collar turned up, smoke curling from his cigarette like thought escaping form. Jeeny was across from him, leaning against a graffiti-stained brick wall, her eyes half-closed, her hands deep in her coat pockets. They looked like two figures painted into the same weary canvas — strangers to everything but understanding.

Jeeny: “Allen Ginsberg once wrote — ‘I am 23, the year of the iron birthday, the gate of darkness. I am ill.’”
Jack: [exhaling smoke] “He always knew how to turn pain into prophecy.”
Jeeny: “And youth into fever. There’s something feral in that line — like he’s standing on the edge of his own becoming.”
Jack: “Or on the edge of collapse.”
Jeeny: “They’re often the same cliff.”
Jack: “Twenty-three. That strange year where you think the world’s supposed to begin, but all it does is start eating you.”
Jeeny: [quietly] “Yes. The gate of darkness — the year when innocence rots into awareness.”
Jack: “And awareness always comes with illness.”
Jeeny: “Not of the body — of the soul.”

Host:
The streetlight flickered, casting them in pulses of light and shadow, as if the city itself couldn’t decide whether to keep them illuminated or hidden. Rain began to fall again, slow, deliberate — not a storm, but a confession.

Jack: “You know, Ginsberg wrote that before Howl, before fame, before the world started calling him genius. He was just a kid who’d seen too much.”
Jeeny: “That’s what makes it powerful. The illness isn’t physical — it’s existential. The sickness of seeing truth too early.”
Jack: “It’s the price of perception. Some people go blind to survive; others burn from clarity.”
Jeeny: “He chose to burn.”
Jack: [nodding] “And that’s why his poetry feels like fever dreams. Every line is a pulse — desperate, raw, luminous.”
Jeeny: “That’s why he called it ‘iron birthday.’ Iron doesn’t bend easily. It breaks or rusts.”
Jack: “Or cuts.”
Jeeny: “Exactly. The gate of darkness isn’t death — it’s adulthood.”

Host:
A bus passed by, spraying a sheet of rainwater over the curb. The city’s rhythm continued indifferently — neon lights, distant sirens, footsteps lost in the endless night. But in that small corner, time felt paused — like Ginsberg’s voice still echoed there, half a century late.

Jack: “You know, I remember being 23. That age felt like both promise and punishment. You think the future’s a key — until you realize it’s a lock.”
Jeeny: “And the key is always something you’re not ready to lose.”
Jack: “Yeah. Youth, maybe. Or sanity.”
Jeeny: “Or illusion. At 23, everything still feels possible — until it isn’t.”
Jack: “And when that realization hits, it’s like a fever breaking.”
Jeeny: “That’s the illness he’s talking about. The sickness of awakening — of realizing you’re no longer invincible, and the world isn’t infinite.”
Jack: “And yet, that’s when the art begins.”
Jeeny: “Because only the disillusioned can create something honest.”

Host:
The rain thickened, falling harder now, a rhythm that matched the tremor in their words. Jack dropped his cigarette, the ember hissing out as it hit the wet concrete.

Jack: “You think Ginsberg was afraid?”
Jeeny: “No. Just overwhelmed. Fear is paralysis. He was moving — too fast, too aware.”
Jack: “Then what does ‘gate of darkness’ really mean?”
Jeeny: “It’s the threshold where the idealist dies and the artist is born.”
Jack: [quietly] “So illness is transformation.”
Jeeny: “Always. The body aches when it grows; the soul burns when it evolves.”
Jack: “And poetry is the scar it leaves behind.”
Jeeny: [smiling faintly] “You’re starting to sound like him.”
Jack: “I feel like him sometimes. Like I’m walking through the city looking for something divine in a world that’s forgotten how to pray.”
Jeeny: “That’s what being 23 is — believing divinity might still be hiding in dirt.”

Host:
Thunder rolled faintly somewhere beyond the skyline. The light from a nearby bar sign reflected across a puddle, broken and shimmering — like memory trying to take shape. Jeeny pushed away from the wall, stepping closer to Jack.

Jeeny: “You know, ‘I am ill’ — that line always sounded like confession, not complaint. As if he knew sickness was the only proof of feeling.”
Jack: “You mean, if you’re numb, you’re already dead?”
Jeeny: “Exactly. Pain was his evidence of life.”
Jack: “And irony — the poet who needed illness to stay alive.”
Jeeny: “The same irony that fuels every artist. Creation and destruction are just two ways of surviving yourself.”
Jack: “So art’s not therapy. It’s infection.”
Jeeny: “And the only cure is to keep creating.”

Host:
The rain softened again, turning into mist. The streetlight steadied, and for a moment, the world was still — like the eye of a storm passing between two souls. Jeeny looked up, her voice quieter now, almost reverent.

Jeeny: “You ever feel it, Jack? That Ginsberg kind of sickness?”
Jack: “Every day. The ache of being awake in a world that prefers sleep.”
Jeeny: “And what do you do with it?”
Jack: “I write. I walk. I fall in love with moments that won’t last.”
Jeeny: “You turn pain into practice.”
Jack: “And failure into rhythm.”
Jeeny: “That’s the gate of darkness — it’s not despair. It’s entry. The moment you stop running from the shadow and start making art from it.”
Jack: “Then maybe we’re all 23 forever — always standing at that gate.”
Jeeny: “Maybe. Some just never walk through.”

Host:
A car horn blared, distant but insistent, then faded into the hum of the city. The smell of wet concrete rose around them. Jack looked out toward the skyline, the skyscrapers veiled in fog.

Jack: “You know, it’s funny. At 23, Ginsberg said he was ill. By 30, he was immortal. Maybe all great art begins with sickness — a fever of perception.”
Jeeny: “Yes. Because art is the symptom of consciousness — the side effect of feeling too deeply.”
Jack: “And the cure?”
Jeeny: [whispering] “There isn’t one. Only expression.”
Jack: “Then we write to stay alive.”
Jeeny: “And die a little in every line.”

Host:
The church bells began to chime in the distance, muffled by the rain — not for prayer, but for persistence. Jeeny reached out, brushing her fingers against Jack’s hand, the gesture both fleeting and grounding.

Jeeny: “You know, Jack, sometimes I think being ‘ill’ is the only honest state. Because the world is sick, and feeling it means you still care.”
Jack: “Then maybe Ginsberg wasn’t confessing weakness. Maybe he was diagnosing the age.”
Jeeny: “And the diagnosis still stands.”
Jack: “Yeah. We just call it by different names now — burnout, anxiety, disillusionment. But it’s the same fever — the sickness of seeing too clearly.”
Jeeny: “And still wanting to love what you see.”

Host:
The rain stopped, leaving only the sound of the city breathing again. The neon light above them flickered one last time, then steadied — fragile but steady, like a heartbeat reclaimed.

Jack looked at Jeeny, the faintest smile in his eyes — tired, yes, but alive in the way Ginsberg meant when he said “ill.”

And as they walked down the wet street,
their reflections stretching beside them like parallel ghosts,
the truth of Allen Ginsberg’s words followed —

that to be 23
is to stand at the threshold of one’s own shadow,
to feel the fever of awareness
and the ache of awakening.

That illness is not always decay —
sometimes it is birth,
the body trembling under the weight of new consciousness.

And that the “gate of darkness”
is not an ending,
but an entrance —
the moment the soul discovers
that to feel too deeply
is to live too fiercely.

For in every artist,
every restless heart,
there lies the same confession:

I am ill —
because I see.
And I am alive —
because I refuse to look away.