Several years ago I arrived in Budapest, Hungary as a lonely and miserable young girl. I hid in the shadows under the tall trees upon the tallest hill and refused to look down, but when I did, choking back tears of fear and regret, I saw a beautiful thing. This city belongs to me, I thought, I felt it in my bones and around every cobblestoned corner. Budapest was mine for however long I could hold it for. Even when I left, I always came back to the same avenue, skipping down the same high hill, but now it is no longer mine. That feeling of belonging has vanished, crumbled into dust and whisked away with the Bavarian winds.
I'm an outsider now, in the city I know best of all, and that feeling is in itself bittersweet. Bitter because a love has died down and sunken below the Danube, and sweet because a new city is calling my name.
Farewell to my dear, Budapest. So much of me wishes to never encounter that realm again, but there's an ache within, which desires nothing more than a repeat of the years passed. If only.
Without a sense of belonging here or anywhere, one wanders aimlessly, hoping to encounter that same inspirational love, but my travelling is dull. Lead me to another place, but I'm back where I've been before, where life has loathed and rejected me dozens of times over and over again. Why come back to a place of misery? I lose my mind, but the thrill of it all keeps me chasing the unknown and the intriguing. No place belongs to me now, though I keep coming back to London.