My city is perfection.
She is the smell of damp earth, slightly wild, slightly mildewed. Even in January. The palmettos and geckos play year round.
She is lovely homes most of us just gawk at and poverty to the extremes. She is love, kindness, loveliness, and she is also ugly, poverty- filled, and lacking in the acknowledgement of those who make her work.
She is paying $5 for a beer just to pee. Because here, urinating is privilege. She is days that bring us to our knees, aching in the beauty. She is days so terrifying she brings us to our knees pleading for mercy against the wildness of the river and the rains.
She is the smell of gas, crawfish, vomit, jasmine, gardenias, body funk…and for all of it we give praise.
She is filling our stomachs for little but filling our souls with more. She is permission and denial. She is effulgence and withholding. She is overflowing in green and she can be stark.
She is the best lover ever and she is the one who will ask the most of us.
She is…perfection. In all her imperfectness.