Known + Unknown

Feeling of returning to place you’ve known that’s now unknown
someone changed somehow familiar
filled with unavoidable ghosts
strangers who you know parts of
drawn in ethereal lines but lines none the less
The wide overlap of a venn diagram of change
a difference layered on top of what hasn’t changed
both visible but blurry
Painted over bricks and murals I’ve never seen

you feel as if a place knows you as well as you know a place, that a place raised you, built you up, but places don’t cling to you, do not hold onto you, do not fight for you. You should not expect protection or affection or redemption when coming back to a place you knew. That place does not know you. Your footsteps are anonymous, that place never knew the momentum with which you moved.

□ □ □ □ □

Neighborhoods I knew are still
bisected by the street names I can dream of
The corners have new restauranteurs
but the namesakes have mostly remained
In a store someone knows my name
tells me they’ve watched the change
seen the old world third fall away
and the place I love
that made philly cheesesteaks
is gone