This is a poem inspired by Subaah leaving home for her first year of college and what it feels like to come back to New York City again.

Journey Away (Subaah) 

I take the F train to East Broadway

With my suitcase and backpack, trekking through the heavy snow alone in Chinatown.

My Pashmina scarf covers my face, up to my eyes.

I pass by delis, grocery stores, laundromats,

So many people, but still feel a crushing solitude.

As the bus starts driving, I see the World Trade Center.

The sky is so clear I could see the top amidst the night sky.

I remember how I could see the World Trade Center from my apartment back in Queens,

How I passed by it on my way to high school school everyday.

Now I see it as I leave the city for college, 333 miles away from home.

A seven hour bus ride is a good time for a mini breakdown. 

Let out a few tears for the sake of my parents, my friends, my brothers,

The city with its surprises, Queens with its good food and people I love.

The city lights fade away until it’s only cars and trees.

Then it’s just the trees.

The dark stillness of the night echoes even through the noise of the vehicle.

This night looks ominous, haunting. 

It is not welcoming, 

Unlike night in the city.

Nature envelopes the whole scenery.

The moon, in its crescent shape, slowly rises and falls as the hours go by.

Stars eventually emerge from the sky, (always a sight to see when you’re from the city).

I concentrate on them really hard 

As if they would disappear if I dare look away.

I miss the tall buildings and the streetlights.

I crave the lights that dot the city skyline and the warmth that comes from the city that never sleeps.

This part of the state is sleeping now,

Yet the forests seem suspiciously restless in the dark. 

Only the stars overlooking the trees know what goes on in there.

It is hard to sleep when my mind is racing.

Bouncing back and forth, from New York City to Rochester.

I slowly ease up to the tranquility of the night, 

To the hundreds of miles of hills and flatlands,

With no skyscrapers for hours.

My city girl mind relaxes. 

I embrace the serene terrain.

We pass by Pennsylvania, the Pocono mountains that I might have mistook for as clouds.

We go up to Binghamton, drive by Syracuse. 

The only lights are from billboards advertising storage spaces and obscure law firms.

Finally, I see the name of my school, 

On medical centers and street signs, and am at peace. 

I’m in known territory again. 

I call my dad back in NYC when I get off the bus.

My call wakes him up from sleep.

I tell him I made it back safe.

It’s hard leaving the city where you grew up in, 

no matter how many times you have to make the journey away.

But eventually, when you arrive at your destination,

A place where you’ve already started building a life in,

You feel better. 

Journey Back (Tracy) 

I’ve returned to New York in every way possible, I think.

Regurgitated through the mouths of the Holland and Lincoln 

Gliding gracefully over the Verrazano 

Sunburned on the ferry back from Sandy Hook 

Down that Hudson River Line, like Billy Joel sang about

On a plane flying so low over Brooklyn and Queens that I can pick out Greenwood Cemetery, and my first apartment, and my next apartment

On my own two feet over the George Washington Bridge 

(this is not an exhaustive list) 

So here’s what you need to know: New York doesn’t care if you were gone but it always welcomes you back.

I don’t mean that there’s no warmth to be found in the city. It’s there, if you know where to look for it. 

I mean that the city goes on without you while you’re away, the way the earth spins on its axis every year, the way your own breath flows in and out: without you doing anything about it.  

So when you come back, you’re dropping into a scene already in motion. You have only to remember your place in the choreography. 

Other cities speak in smiles and whispers

They show you proudly their neat and manicured lawns 

They are polite and presentable, like a nice suit dress, like church clothes 

New York dresses only for itself. It contains all the wonders of the world but needs to show you nothing, for it has nothing to prove: it is what it is, and you can choose to be in it or outside it. 

When I come back to this place I love, I take a deep breath and let its chaotic symphony welcome me back in. 

The blare of car horns, the heels on hard pavement, the indelible bing-bong of the subway doors 

The motorbikes that buzz below my window, the heavy footfalls of my upstairs neighbor, and my clanging radiator singing me to sleep

And I feel the peace and contentment of knowing I’m home. 

Process

Subaah: In our pair poem, I write about the journey away from New York City as I leave the city to university. I particularly recall aspects of my recent bus ride when leaving the city after winter break. I try to embody these experiences while writing the poem, drawing the imagery that I lived through a month ago. I use colors as well, taking on advice from GWN workshops focusing on color and storytelling. Through my poem, I attempt to describe the feeling of having to leave and the process of overcoming it over the bus trip. I paint an image of how the landscape also changes around me as the bus makes its way upstate.

Tracy: Subaah and I have different relationships to New York City–she grew up here, while I am a transplant. But we both experience the gravitational pull of New York City as our home, and the way that leaving or coming back to the city can feel like stepping through a portal to a completely different world — a feeling that’s both comforting and cathartic.