Moving

I remember the journey and the marvellous in-between feeling as I felt my heart ripping and unthreading itself away from anywhere I had ever felt secure. It was like being thrown into the deep end of the pool learning how to swim on your own; to prove that this was something you always had inside of you. You learn faster when you introduce a catalyst. You’ll thrash through the abyss, your organs fight and you can feel a valiant beat run through your body as you conquer the surface. Well, you learned to swim, didn’t you?

With every 10 miles or so, it seemed as if a new colour had burst its way into the spectrum. In the city, my blind eyes had only ever seen lighter and darker shades of grey; we were wrapped in a grimy window embedded with dirt and dust and despair which cast mundane illusions across places that fascinate and entertain the masses.

The car still smelt of city blood: smoke and carcinogens, it ate away at the expensive leather and I itched to wind down the windows with my nimble fingers, but I knew my mother would fuss. She hated driving with the windows open, yet I craved the freedom. I wanted to feel the wind on my neck and I wanted to forget about home. Home was a million miles away from that moving vehicle and I suspected my heart would heal from its trial separation with industrialisation. I’d never really loved New York anyway.