that define your relationship with the city:
the first is when you arrive,
full of piss and poetry,
ready to let this place
chop your heart in half.
the second is when you leave it,
and that grip the city had on you,
that deep sense of romance
starts to loosen...
but the third moment
that's the one that gets you (me):
it's when you come back,
and walk past it all,
tracing the outline of your former life...
every block has a ghost;
a place you fell in love,
a place you fell out of it;
that restaurant you worked at;
the building you lived in...
the city hasn't stopped,
and it never really does,
it's just all a bit smaller somehow.
maybe you meet someone for lunch;
a new friend from a different chapter,
someone you've never crossed paths with before.
it's that strange overlap
of past and present,
of who you were
and who you've become.
so when you (I) sit down to eat a bagel
next to a pile of trash,
for some reason
it feels a little different this time.
maybe you are more aware of it,
because New York doesn't care if you've changed,
but somehow it always shows you
that you have.
.png)
