Never Be Afraid That I Will Stop Loving You

You are the city I grew up in.

You are the playground where I met my best friend, the familiar roads which I walked from school with a skip in my step, the white house with the blue door which always seemed so friendly because it meant I was two minutes away from home. You are those familiar feelings of complete content to me.

You are the pond I walked to as refuge for my tears, the castle ruins where I played hide and seek as a child, the oak tree that I climbed just to get away from the whole world for a little while. You are all these emotions I had never named as a child come alive.

You are that feeling of quiet wonder I had when I saw a glittering skyline in the night from a balcony for the first time, and the silent early mornings when I would stay awake to see the dawn as it rose over a just waking city. All of these feelings that I have called home, wrapped into the body that I can wrap my arms around and hold.

Your eyes are the colour of the earth just as the rain had kissed it, your hands are as the same warm, safe places I always loved, your mouth the whispers of the wind when it rained against my bedroom window.

Please never feel afraid of my ever knowing you too well, so well that I forget the value of you or of how you smell of places I have loved, and places I have grown up in.

Never feel afraid that I will stop loving you.

Because, even after living my whole life in it, I have never known my city well enough to stop loving it. And I will never treat you like I have known you too well, well enough to stop loving you.

You are the city I grew up in.

Your eyes are the gates,
Your soul is my companion
Your veins the roads I travel.