its nothing that hasn’t been said before a thousand times. Im back in Philadelphia and we’re both different. I go to a fancy cocktail bar that’s opened on the road I’ve only ever been down to get to my ex‘s apartment. there were fewer businesses then, and many buildings were shuttered and dark. now there are high rises where there used to just be skeleton structures of plywood and plastic. I get coffee with two friends I introduced just before I left, and it’s sweet and strange to see the new flower of a friendship there that I didn’t watch grow. I take the bus down Washington Ave and try to catch a glimpse down the street my best friend used to live on, at the rooftop where we laughed and cried and sang and smoked and took five hundred thousand pictures of ourselves silhouetted against the skyline. I get lunch with my ex in his new neighborhood, eating at the diner we ordered delivery from when we had to quarantine together in late 2020. We talk about therapy and new partners and change. I take the regional rail out to the suburbs to see an old coworker who now has a baby. She shows me pictures from their family’s Christmas. I sit backwards on the way home, letting my eyes relax the row homes into a blur until im almost sick. A flock of starlings flies next to the train, gliding through the air for an almost unbelievable amount of time even with their wings closed. The birds all suddenly alight in a tree and the train pulls away.
