Goodbye to NY Poem

How do you say goodbye to a place When it's the only place You've ever known This is a love letter to New York My state My state of mind New York is my blood The roots of the birch trees With their peeling bark That remind me of the paint peeling Off the ceiling in my high school bedroom At my mom's house The same bedroom where my mom Gave me three buckets of paint Said to call some friends Paint the walls Instead we took a bunch of permanent markers Scribbled song lyrics all over them Threw up some band posters And underground rap show flyers And called it a day So I can't pretend it's not emotional The many homes I've had in New York Will always be my source of inspiration These four seasons were my concerto As towns along the Hudson River Played an orchestra in my veins The black dirt Meadow Blues Turnpikes Ithaca rooftops New York hikes Extended family College days Lifelong friendships Like all of my heroes New York will always be a part of me This accent when I say Words like coffee or awesome You carry these idiosyncrasies Of your home state with you They're the souvenirs That line your suitcase The map that leads you back To who you are So this news is bittersweet But this is not goodbye No this is not goodbye I'm moving to Los Angeles To really give my music career my all July 2023 Wish me luck It's not that New York didn't work out It's that New York worked out so well I got to the end of the back road I was walking down as an independent artist And I discovered there's even more to it There are the woods and a forest beyond that And a highway across the country And a million other small towns Just like my one across the United States And across the globe And the best years of my life Are yet to happen If I don't make this move My life is like a memoir with no conclusion An album with no liner notes A roll of film sitting on the shelf undeveloped You guys My fans Have lifted me up since day one And I need you now more than ever To be a part of this movement My nowhere kids I'll see you in California