Shaped Like Me / by Marcelese Cooper

City with a view

Eyes set on new scenery 

Pastures fed til reaching their greenest hues 

As far as I can tell

This city feels big

Though I’ve lived in bigger

But I’ve lived in smaller too

I’ve felt even smaller still

But not here

Here I’m tall and lovely

That’s what the right destination can do

A city shaped like me

A city shaped like you

Traveling but not alone

Loved despite all the ways I’ve changed 

The ways I’ve grown

Moving and always picking up speed 

Picking up bruises

New worries

New dreams

Eyes set forward but blinders long gone

What I’m missing always whipping by

Deep into the corners of my eyes

Tucked into the corners of my mind

I’m here

That’s all I know

I’m here and I’ll do do anything to stay

In a city shaped like me

This city has a sound 

In trains passing by 

In the rattling of seats on the bus

In downtown arguments 

In car horns and bike bells

In odd greetings and goodbyes

Even music fills the air sometimes 

This city is always bathed in something 

If not the sounds then light

In a feeling one might call home

This city is so new to me but I hear all the steps of others that came before me

Walking to the beat of their own drums 

This city sounds like me

Or maybe I want to believe it does

If I belong somewhere just imagine all the things I could do

After all it’s a city shaped like me

And that’s a place I’ve always wanted to be

A city shaped like you