On New York.

I miss you, New York.

I was a wide-eyed kid when we started; riding, as I always have, on the coat-tails of my friends.  We moved into that shitty little apartment over the Knitting Factory; I spent my nights feeling the bass in my teeth as I slept over the main stage.  Dove into you headfirst, snapping up the first job I could tending bar in the neighborhood rathole, getting drunk, getting my friends drunk, making new friends getting drunk.  What else was I supposed to do?  Mom was gone; I had a fistful of cash, a head of falsely blond hair and zero ambition.

I needed to be consumed, and you swallowed me whole.  I needed to burn, and you made me a torch.  I made all the bad calls, I dated all the wrong women.  I slept on a church pew, I slept in a pile of money.  I was covered in sewage, someone else's shit, someone else's blood.  I spent my nights banging shots and riding rails; I woke up in neighborhoods I didn't recognize.  I walked the Brooklyn Bridge with a bottle of Bushmills, praying for the strength to jump.  I grew hard and angry, beautifully scarred.  And when I left, broke and broken, it wasn't because you had no more that I could take, it was because I had no more left to give.

And I wonder what I left behind.  Sal's dead.  Billy's dead.  I don't know what happened to Elizabeth or Barry or Steve.  Jason moved on, and darling Sue is at long last happy.  I wonder if you still remember me, New York.  If you still love me the way you did.  You probably don't.

I'm different now.  I lead a life of cats and couches and video games.  I pay my taxes.  I mow my lawn.  But I remember the thunder of my boots on the pavement. Glass in my hands and cigarettes clamped in my teeth. Looking over the city from roofdecks with scraped knuckles and burning eyes.

If what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, then I am immortal.  I am shards of wisdom and mistakes pasted together with whisky and lies.  I am stories long forgotten, experiences shared with people that don't exist anymore.  When I set foot in your streets again, I feel stronger, sharper.  Better than I am, wiser than I once was.

I love you, New York.  I always will.