I’m in your city
It’s my first time being back since everything’s changed. Touching down at LAX used to feel like coming home. I was ready to make this city my home because wherever you were felt like home to me.
The city stayed the same, but it looks so different to me now. Before, we would walk the same streets that raised you. To me, LA has always been street tacos at midnight and hopping chain-link fences for late-night hoop sessions. Therapy is what it really was. It set my soul on fire. Not a care in the world; just good people, good music, and enough weed to smoke out the entire block.
Last time I landed here you greeted me with flowers and my usual Chick-fil-A order. The butterflies, frantic and free, weren’t there to race through my chest this time. Just a sinking reminder that things will never be the same. This will never feel like home again.
LA used to be my peace. I came here to escape the pain of my own thoughts. Reality is easy to ignore here, and I loved that for me. We made so many memories. Echo Park will never not remind me of the way your skin glows just before the sunsets. Street tacos will never just be street tacos. Each taco truck has your name painted in red and all I see is you holding me on the sidewalk as I shivered under a full moon.
Your friends welcomed me as part of your family and their love for you overflowed into me. Thanksgiving dinner at Johnny’s is the reason Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday now. Again, everyone’s love for you overflowed. Especially mine. You are so full of love. That’s what made you so addicting. You spread so much joy. You were just stingy when it came to giving the love you received.
It’s been two years since I was in your city last. The city itself hasn’t changed, but nothing looks the same. My fashionably late chariot isn’t waiting in the arrivals lane. Instead, here I am, in the ride-share zone. Alone. I feel a sense of clarity, like I’m seeing things for the first time.
To me, it’s not your city anymore. And I’m not your girl anymore. There’s an exciting sense of romance in the air that I never felt before. Endless possibility, is what it feels like. For the first time, I am free in your city. Free to do and see what I please. Free to discover exactly what that is.
As comfortable and warm as your world was, I had to shrink myself to fit into it. There was no room for my dreams. I chose your love over opportunity and you chose opportunity over me. You showed me who you were every chance you got, and I denied your truth as much as I denied my own.
I want to go to the liquor store down the street from your childhood home, just to feel you again. To visit the park where we lost most our days playing basketball until it became a chore to walk. You taught me what it was like to truly feel alive and be present in the moment, and that’s why I fell in love with your city. It told the story of you, and it was my favorite story to read. I read it so many times, thinking if I became an expert you would embrace me the way I embraced you.
Your city has different stories to tell this time, and I’m anxious to hear them all. Today , it’s no longer your city. It’s just a reminder of how far I’ve come.
