chautauqua, ny

I was raised around the string tied around you.

at the bottom of your bag was where my father practiced medicine 

and where I went to daycare,

and between those two points is where I was supposed to go high school. 

at the aperture lived a close friend and a camp I would go to during the summer,

and in the middle of the lake is where I would go on our boat

when I became a teen, it became my friends’ jetskis.

I would cross the string everyday to visit the other world, your sister.

for a thousand summers,

I got to stand on a porch and watch the most beautiful sunsets in the world.

the reflection shimmered on the lake,

and so I saw my home recreating the very same beauty that a god could only offer.

when it was night, I got to lay on a roof and stargaze 

and saw the plethora of worlds yet to be discovered right from my very home.

for a thousand years, I could romanticize you.

your undiscovered gorgeousness, although crowded during the brightest suns

how I could always walk on water in each season

on ice during the winter, and with a kayak during the summer 

how everytime I rolled down a window, I could smell your specific aroma

the one that personified the wilderness’ untameness yet comfort

and how every angle of you was a perfect photograph for the louvre.

however, after eighteen years, there’s other canvases I must appreciate.

I accept my departure from you.

I’ve loved you forever, and I’m sorry I left you for so many years

I brought as many pieces of you over as I could, and I’ll do the same again

my interests differentiate so drastically from what you could deliver

and so I must go from a city surrounding water, to a city surrounded by water

a population sixty six times yours, and the lights much brighter each night.

thank you for your environment, it planted the artist that would soon appreciate you

you’ll see him grow further, and will return to cross that string again.