There’s a certain experience that comes with being a city native. You’ve experienced the advent of urbanization, you know the shortcuts and alleys that cut through the veins of your city, you’ve memorized the names of the streets that surround you better than your own people. You know the difference between school smart and street smart, you are recognized as a product of the streets. Your character is built from conversations with strangers and confrontations with night life, your attitude stems from arguments on the bus and passers-by shoving you through the busy streets, your hidden impatience derives from the ingrained habit of jaywalking every opportunity you get. Your language comes from the bad words you learned being shouted from across the block, your art is influenced by the murals that seemed to stretch for miles, telling the stories of your history and culture. You learn the ways the city communicates, a connection that goes further than just bus lines. You absorb culture, you recognize the kids smoking on the front steps as art, you take in the mix of conversations and slurs on the train, making a soundtrack of its own. You learn to claim your pride, as an adventurer, a teller, a scholar. You learn the city, love through the city, breathe the city. It isn’t until your departure that you understand a broken lovers grief over leaving your heart somewhere else.