Dear Minneapolis
Dear Minneapolis
Dear Minneapolis ... I love you
I know you know this. We've been at it for a while.
Dear Minneapolis
You are all I know.
It's hard to step away when the love is tender, strong and exciting. When I am still enchanted by new sides of you every time I look around your corners.
I run my hands and my bike tires up your streets and I can still find new secrets that make me smile. Your sunshine is so achingly sweet. It melts snow, sleet and sadness. You are solid. You are kind. We have history, but you have always caught me when I feel like jumping. You have always held me when I feel alone. You have reminded me of humanity, diversity and change when I felt like the world would always press me down. You are small joys, wild and unplanned flowers, strangers singing, the silence of snow packing me tight inside myself. You are the people who live you and love you, the people who dreamt you and built you, the people who loved your falls and your fields and your forests long before others laid tracks and bricks and smokestacks across you. Those complicated tattoos decorating your supple expanses. You are the long layers of humanity and history over wilderness. You are young, but much older than I am. Still, we grew up together.
The nights before I left you, we made love, long and late. You were just getting started then, shaking off the introspective cocoon of winter, revving your engine, dreaming of the heat that was coming. We touched gently at first, scared to get close, invest in each other, since we knew I was close to going. You had grown cold during the winter. We had forgotten what exuberance means. All the humans got too hot, too tight, wrapped up together with each other, no room to move, finding it hard to breathe under the thick comforter of snow. Stepping out, your cool air refreshed me, dried the feverish sweat that had formed on my skin, filled my lungs with new fresh possibilities. I was alone again with you, for the first time in a season. We were tender, like new buds. Young love in early spring.
But it's not like I am your only lover. As spring progressed, I saw you looking up the skirts of those hot girls in their new sundresses. You made lush grass and asked all the young people to lay on it, feel you close to them. You make them feel alive. I know. I've been there and done that. You are mischievous. You've set up all those corners I've kissed in, all the benches and bridges and beaches I've made out on. The lake I made love in. You make eden and ask only that we enjoy it, play in it, keep you company. You are a dirty old man, Minneapolis.
Those last few nights, I went down to the falls, I rode Minnehaha. Crossed your south section on the diagonal. On that historical path. That old original that existed before you were surveyed and delineated and sold. I was restless. I watched you and soaked you in as I had for the last few weeks. It was just you and me. Sweet breezes promising me everything I love about you if I just stayed a few more weeks, a month or two, whispering in my ear, kissing my neck, your cool fingers through my hair.
We are always too frantic in spring. We take our clothes off too fast, we try to put our hands in your cold soil too early. Plan picnics in melted snow puddles and ride bicycles over your ice. You were in a hurry those nights, too. We all were. Winter had broken like a sickness. I rode my bike fast and hard and angry. I love your sweetness, I love your bite. I love you in that sexy dress of slinky soft night with the street lights in your hair. But you couldn't keep me.
I think you hoped to make me stay. And it's true, I came back to the falls to feel that cold spring melt water pounding through me, night after night. One AM. Alone in the spotlight, you fucked me like a beast awakening. Thundering water reverberating against my whole body. My whole self. All of our history.
Still, I had to say goodbye.
I know I love you, but I love you without comparison. You are the only city I've known. Sure, I've had polite conversations with Boston and Philadelphia, I slept with Santa Fe once or twice, San Fransisco and I played together as children, but I have always come home to you, night after night. Too scared or too satisfied to leave you.
The goodbye kiss was long, I pressed my lips against your lakes, held your buildings in my hands, caressed the length of your lightrail. You were beautiful, the first blush of spring green softening you. I watched you as I walked away, letting my hand trail down your freeway for as long as I could. You were stoic. Steady. Ready to keep working and living and playing in my absence, even if you were aching for me to stay.
You are the best lover. You let me go when I needed to leave. You are confident in our love, confident I will come back to you. I know you will greet me warmly on my return, even if our touch is timid and slow at first. You will take joy in my growth, as I will in yours, comparing notes, adventures, wisdoms gained. You will look better than I even remember you, plump with the fats of summer, all sexy curves, lush gardens and humidity. We will be a different person and a different city, but our bond is strong and fluid, like any good relationship. I will take joy in your joy, you in my joy. Together or apart, we are lovers. I will grow old with you, dear city, even if I stray from your doorstep. Even if I never return to your embrace again. We are linked for life.
Minneapolis, I love you.
-Sheepling
Dear Minneapolis ... I love you
I know you know this. We've been at it for a while.
Dear Minneapolis
You are all I know.
It's hard to step away when the love is tender, strong and exciting. When I am still enchanted by new sides of you every time I look around your corners.
I run my hands and my bike tires up your streets and I can still find new secrets that make me smile. Your sunshine is so achingly sweet. It melts snow, sleet and sadness. You are solid. You are kind. We have history, but you have always caught me when I feel like jumping. You have always held me when I feel alone. You have reminded me of humanity, diversity and change when I felt like the world would always press me down. You are small joys, wild and unplanned flowers, strangers singing, the silence of snow packing me tight inside myself. You are the people who live you and love you, the people who dreamt you and built you, the people who loved your falls and your fields and your forests long before others laid tracks and bricks and smokestacks across you. Those complicated tattoos decorating your supple expanses. You are the long layers of humanity and history over wilderness. You are young, but much older than I am. Still, we grew up together.
The nights before I left you, we made love, long and late. You were just getting started then, shaking off the introspective cocoon of winter, revving your engine, dreaming of the heat that was coming. We touched gently at first, scared to get close, invest in each other, since we knew I was close to going. You had grown cold during the winter. We had forgotten what exuberance means. All the humans got too hot, too tight, wrapped up together with each other, no room to move, finding it hard to breathe under the thick comforter of snow. Stepping out, your cool air refreshed me, dried the feverish sweat that had formed on my skin, filled my lungs with new fresh possibilities. I was alone again with you, for the first time in a season. We were tender, like new buds. Young love in early spring.
But it's not like I am your only lover. As spring progressed, I saw you looking up the skirts of those hot girls in their new sundresses. You made lush grass and asked all the young people to lay on it, feel you close to them. You make them feel alive. I know. I've been there and done that. You are mischievous. You've set up all those corners I've kissed in, all the benches and bridges and beaches I've made out on. The lake I made love in. You make eden and ask only that we enjoy it, play in it, keep you company. You are a dirty old man, Minneapolis.
Those last few nights, I went down to the falls, I rode Minnehaha. Crossed your south section on the diagonal. On that historical path. That old original that existed before you were surveyed and delineated and sold. I was restless. I watched you and soaked you in as I had for the last few weeks. It was just you and me. Sweet breezes promising me everything I love about you if I just stayed a few more weeks, a month or two, whispering in my ear, kissing my neck, your cool fingers through my hair.
We are always too frantic in spring. We take our clothes off too fast, we try to put our hands in your cold soil too early. Plan picnics in melted snow puddles and ride bicycles over your ice. You were in a hurry those nights, too. We all were. Winter had broken like a sickness. I rode my bike fast and hard and angry. I love your sweetness, I love your bite. I love you in that sexy dress of slinky soft night with the street lights in your hair. But you couldn't keep me.
I think you hoped to make me stay. And it's true, I came back to the falls to feel that cold spring melt water pounding through me, night after night. One AM. Alone in the spotlight, you fucked me like a beast awakening. Thundering water reverberating against my whole body. My whole self. All of our history.
Still, I had to say goodbye.
I know I love you, but I love you without comparison. You are the only city I've known. Sure, I've had polite conversations with Boston and Philadelphia, I slept with Santa Fe once or twice, San Fransisco and I played together as children, but I have always come home to you, night after night. Too scared or too satisfied to leave you.
The goodbye kiss was long, I pressed my lips against your lakes, held your buildings in my hands, caressed the length of your lightrail. You were beautiful, the first blush of spring green softening you. I watched you as I walked away, letting my hand trail down your freeway for as long as I could. You were stoic. Steady. Ready to keep working and living and playing in my absence, even if you were aching for me to stay.
You are the best lover. You let me go when I needed to leave. You are confident in our love, confident I will come back to you. I know you will greet me warmly on my return, even if our touch is timid and slow at first. You will take joy in my growth, as I will in yours, comparing notes, adventures, wisdoms gained. You will look better than I even remember you, plump with the fats of summer, all sexy curves, lush gardens and humidity. We will be a different person and a different city, but our bond is strong and fluid, like any good relationship. I will take joy in your joy, you in my joy. Together or apart, we are lovers. I will grow old with you, dear city, even if I stray from your doorstep. Even if I never return to your embrace again. We are linked for life.
Minneapolis, I love you.
-Sheepling