Ever since New York gave me my walking papers I have hated him. He forced to go to new lands, making mine too intolerably oppressive and barren. When I would visit him all I could think about was how he would never satisfy me, how he would make me work so hard to prove myself and sometimes act as if he didn't love me, how hurt and fragile and needy I felt when I was with him.

Now I know that he loves me, truly loves me and I can feel it. It burns my skin as I am drenched in the heat and humidity of it. I felt ecstatic the way I did when he very first embraced me and recalled on every corner how much I had loved him. It all came flooding back every recollection, every face, the smells of coffee and urine, exhaust and pizza. The steam rising from the streets. A Steve Riechian marimba, the screech of wheels on the pavement, and the hum, the glorious hum.

But, mostly it is the air, and feeling the air on my body- that air that is so supercharged with particles from the millions of people living in such close proximity. My lungs are full of you! And you and you and you!
And these people who are so many ages and races ALL have whole lives… they check me out and I check them out, and there are these little sparks of recognition when our eyes meet, as we try catch a glimpse each other's stories. This makes me feel alive.
And the women are so beautiful and walking down the street I feel that I have just been inducted into some cosmic consciousness of beauty and become one of them, or rather I have just become aware that I have been one of them all along.

I have been blessed and rearranged, made contiguous, made able to get places within myself that had been disjointed and walled off. I have a new sense of strength and wholeness, no that I am reattached to my past.

Thank you New York for helping to raise me, for inspiring me and loving me.
I will miss you till I see you again.