How do you stay there?
In a city that doesn’t exist anymore.
Drowned under bike lanes and condos
Do you know people struggle
to pinpoint my accent now
they ask “Where are you from?”
– New Orleans?
– One of the Carolina’s?
– Chicago?
I would joke and say “no, Atlantis”
Because my city was flooded
By faces who turn red in the winter
Reminding me of you,
A Cherry blossom,
That would bloom,
Every spring

Do you remember how it started?
For us, it was a knock on the door.
Answered by my father,
On the other side, A man
Who’s hair barely clung to his scalp
They had A conversation
That started with “good morning”
Included A “thank you”
A “you’re welcome”
An envelope,
A deed,
A polite smile
And ended with a closed door
My father turned And said
“we had to leave.”

I thought of the homeless men
The ones who would blend
into the walls outside of gas stations.
And carried a chime of “hey, heys!”
As we walked in. It was common to see them
And ignored their asks of “something’s”
their voices sounded more like compliments
Saying “you’re doing better than me
And you have what I need”

Is that what we looked like to them?
Sounded like to them?
our new white neighbors
The ones who forced us to leave
Were we now the Beggars saying
“we belong here”
“It’s our city”
And what would that make you?
A tree,
still standing
Still growing
under a no loitering sign
That was only meant for me

You stayed,
Roots dug in the dirt deep
To a city that would throw away people
Before flowers,
Uproot the blacks
Leave the trees

Is that why we left?
So easily
Without a fight
Packed up our whole apartment
Our life and pride in boxes
And left empty
In the night

I grew up in a city
That built a country
That was stolen
And stolen again
And no one talks about it

Even now,
when I say the name,
People tell me how much they love it there,
And it hurts to hear.
Makes my tongue swell in my mouth
Pressed against the roof of a house,
We don’t own.
Pushing my teeth like doors or windows,
Begging to be let out or in.
Clintching my jaw like locked keys
Holding in all the things I want to say
And swallowing them down
to the bottom of my throat
a basement
Now stored with questions
That I can only ask you

Dear Pink Tree,
Do you remember our city?
The taste of mambo sauce
dripping off chicken at grandmothers house?
Or the sound of the live band music
forcing you to beat your feet
against the concrete?
Or the sight of fishing boats that would dock
And sell their blue crab cheaply?

Of course you don’t remember
You were one of the beautiful things they kept,
The rest of the city drowned
Under bike lanes and condos
Flooded in the sounds of
Smiling “Good mornings”
Instead of empty “hey heys!”
A city filled with grateful “thank you’s”
And happy “you’re welcomes”

That welcomed a tree,
But not me.
I wish you luck with your new neighbors
Keep blooming for them every spring
So you won’t be uprooted in the end

Sincerely,
An old friend