Your old neighborhood doesn’t miss you.
It doesn’t recognize your absence.
There is no hole
no crater in the space you once held.
No memorials
in your empty apartment
no plaques to commemorate the time you spent
in those old environs.
The old days are forgotten.
You have been forgotten
and the world has done nothing
to hold you dear.

Individual elements may still hold regard.
A singular Tom, Dick or Harry
may still know your name
but the streets have no memories of your steps.
Your money is good here in the old hood.

The old neighborhood cares nothing for you
has forgotten you
has left you for dead
just as you abandoned it
for warmer climes
when you white flew to a far better place.