if others only knew the amount of days i spent hidden in the corners of your buildings. how much i learned about myself through solitude, silence, and sadness. and though those weren’t the only head-spaces and environments i was in, they’re the ones that surprise me the most, looking back. i always thought that revelation came through stability because i’d be lucid enough to understand it. but i had it all wrong. even if i did my very best at explaining, if we switched bodies and brains for a day and you saw everything from my point of view, even then it’d be nearly impossible to get the full picture. and between us, i like that impossibility. the lack of access and the knowledge that only i have that key. it welcomes your curiosity and imagination and the rewriting of my life by an outsider. then by doing that, i can see myself differently. it’s an exploration and exercise on of everything we both are, simultaneously.
i think about the bright flashes every night. the tower was my lighthouse - my constant guide. the feeling of safety that it gave to look up from almost anywhere and see her there, stagnant forever and yet so strong.
now, whenever i see the sun come up in the morning i remember my friend’s kindness and all the loudness that surrounded our atmosphere. maybe it has something to do with the color of our hair, and the way i got to know your heart.
i know very little about anything but i know we rewrote the entire history of that place in one day. our conversations were so special they situated themselves on top of everything else that had been there centuries before we were even born. but like a permanent statue, those moments will stay in that place forever. in specific streets, in movie theaters, in underground trains, on hills of uncut grass. people walk through us everyday and they don’t even know it.
do you remember it as much as i do? so much time has passed since and i can’t help but think of how much i do not know. how the time i spent there is insignificant in comparison to thousands, to you. how maybe i don’t know what i’m talking about and maybe she’s right and nostalgia is a mind’s trick.
but i think again and how could i be wrong? that city is endless, time bends and becomes liquid and suddenly your first day there is your entire life. i knew it the first hour i ever spent there. i knew it deep inside me that i’d say goodbye to the east coast and all the movies that i had planned, those that happened inside my mind.
i knew it when i didn’t care that the most prominent animal that resides there is the only one that terrifies me. i knew it when i walked through streets and couldn’t breathe because of the smoke and still truly felt i was breathing the purest air. i knew it when bags and bags and bags of trash popped up on every street for weeks so much so that little mountains of them started to form and you had to walk around them. i knew it when i didn’t have any money and knew i’d find a way. i knew it when i heard everything that people hated about you and how much of a disappointment you had been. all of that was nonsense to me. i knew it whenever i had to grow in the moment and become braver, the people that were born into you taught me that. and i especially knew it the night i almost took my own life and how it was my love for you, not for myself or anyone in my life, that stopped me.
if i lost myself then i’d lose you forever too. i couldn’t bear the thought of that. my empathy was at the lowest. the truth is that everything people criticize about you can be said about me as well. come take a look inside my room any time of the year, look at the state it’s in. it’s got it’s pretty parts without a doubt but the mess always comes back around. talk to me when i’m feeling down and you’ll see how deep my words can cut. i can be more dismissive than i’m proud to admit, i’m worse than any of your citizens have been claimed to be. i’m as imperfect as you.
but through all of that you’re still my favorite place in the world. just because i admit how flawed you are doesn’t mean i don’t see the beauty in all of that. you taught me not to deem imperfections and mistakes as something negative. they just are.
i said it before and i’ll say it once more:
there's corners of you that other's have experienced years before me and are whole experts in areas where i fall ignorant to and maybe won't come to know for a long time. there’s those who have stayed after i left and those who came once i was no longer there. i’m no expert on your history, but i think i might be one on the feeling you emit.
you’ve taught me patience and given me purpose.

do you stil think of me? do you still have space for me? do you miss me as much as i miss you? between me and you, i really hope you do. and i think i know it too.