I'd never move back to LA, but there is something about it that pulls at my heart every time I think about the place. I supposed I am not completely disconnected from it, seeing how nostalgic I get whenever I look through Instagrams of people I used to know, or seeing images of the ocean from the mountains. Coastlines, big white Ts, baggy pants, shaved heads, cocky grins. Mini skirts, lip gloss, vitamin water, my hatred for pink, basketball shorts past the knees, sticky interlocking fingers, tomboy forever. Beautiful boys, the energy of youth, of rebellion, of unspeakable freedom  - to say, to be, to do whatever you want, with nothing in your way. I suppose the times I grew up in, will never be. A glorious Westside, without gentrifiers, without conglomerates, affluent and ghetto, innovative and historic, comfortable, at home. There will never be another one of you, the LA of my youth. Maybe that's why I can't go back, I want to keep the one I had forever, and never replace it with a new LA. From the bottom of the ocean, where I've hidden for all of my life, I caught my first breath out of water by way of the beauty, the superficial, the simplistic, the segregated, the diverse, the super-suburb land of Los Angeles. It was such a beautiful time, and I don't mind that I wasn't wild, or shy, or that I was desperately looking for love, to belong to a group. I don't mind trying hard, who as a young bird isn't? There's a part of LA I will always love, but like all loves, nothing stays the same, aside from the feelings alive inside my heart, welling in my eyes, choking my throat. I want it all as my own, it is mine to keep, but not mine to hold onto.

I love you forever.