That City

My time here is coming to an end.

Tomorrow, I'll be back to the city.

That city: with its polluted air, noise, the filth, and its total lack of kindness.

That city: with its beaches I love, civic amenities I value, theaters I frequent, libraries I visit.

That city, with its people: The confident, the suave, the hapless, the lost.

That city of endless demonstrations and the consequent break-down of order, while the law chooses to look the other way.

That city, with its dark obsession with people's private lives.

That city, with its palpable lack of enthusiasm and enterprise: where corner-shops remain closed on Sundays.

That city, with its pathetically repressed sexuality, where women are groped in broad daylight.

That city, where pedestrians fall into potholes, and die.

That city, which has my sweat and tears flowing through its sewers.

That city, where I once met a woman, and knew love.

That city, which I refer to as mine, but in truth belongs to no one.

Nobody's city.

That city, which I didn't think I'd ever come to miss.