upside downtown

i wrote this about 2 months ago while sitting outside at the coffee house. now, the coffeehouse is being sold to the development agency. its like watching my youth disappear one business at a time. i guess i shouldn't feel so privileged to think that i could escape the effects of gentrification. but enough commentary. on to the writing:

I am sitting at a coffee shop I frequented ten years ago. And all around it, things have changed. This is now uptown, and across the street is a bar whose LED sign advertises 80s night.

Ten years ago I sat just a few feet away, and I read a poem of my own aloud for the first time. In those days, this was downtown, and I recognized the faces of the passersby.

I’m back working in the same office where I spent those summer days, and though little has changed there, my attention to detail now thrives.

I used to spend my nights staying awake, roaming the streets, using the cover or darkness to engage in illicit acts in parks and feeding my thin body only on caffeine and free desserts from all night restaurants. In those days there was always someone to see and somewhere to go next. There was always an adventure just around the corner. And many of those adventures began on the corner I’m staring at. But the pizza place is gone along with the import store, and my favorite roach-infested lunch counter. And half the disappeared places I can’t lament because I don’t recall what occupied these brownstones. There was a thrift store somewhere on this block. The comic book store where I once saw Kevin Smith. The drug paraphernalia store that claimed to be a music store. The music store my one-time crush bought after I moved. The candy store in the old train station. The used book store. This place, in many ways reminded me of an early Linklater movie. Now its just Uptown.

And a skinny blonde girl walks past in short shorts and a thrift store t shirt accompanied by a dreaded guy on a skateboard. And for a minute I pause. First because they make a strange pair. But I see myself in her. Second because they just don’t seem to belong here anymore. At least the way I used to belong here. Or the way I felt I did. But it was downtown then. Now its uptown.