[Got an anonymous confession or rant you just have to share with the world? Submit it to I, Anonymous HERE!—eds]
Dear Portland,
I never felt like I belonged anywhere until we met. When I left you, I was heartbroken, but I had no choice. Years have passed, and my love for you remains strong. I want to get back together, make it work. Give me a chance.
Growing up in rural Washington, people said I was weird. You said it too but it felt like a compliment. I wandered your streets, looking for myself, escaping myself, finding the true me. You introduced me to people I shared things in common. You showed me I could start an all woman punk band, be an artist, realize my dreams.
you gave me the chance to teach timid girls how to rock, find their voice, assert themselves: priceless. When I needed something, you made sure I could almost always find it on the sidewalk waiting, for free.
You told me if I came out as pansexual, I would find community and I did. You gave me an unending supply of hot hookups that taught me pleasures that I cannot speak of here in cow country. You showed me that I do not have to fit a mold to be accepted, worthy.
You let me dress in drag and hang with the cool girls downtown. You never let anyone know that I had a vagina or that the Adam’s Apple beneath my choker didn’t exist. You taught me how to be fluid back when gender was still dictated by anatomy.
When we were together, I was never bored, felt alone, or more alive. I miss your summer berries, rose gardens, green spaces, and clothes by the pound. Now, exiled across the mountain in the desert, no friends, social life, or financial plan that would bring me home to you, my sense of loss for the love we shared inspired me to complete my first novel where you are a character in your own right. It tells the story of my love for you.
Someday, I will find my way back home. I love you forever, Portland. Your the only city for me.
Love,
X