Time to Go
In which my heart will always belong to Philly, but it's time for something completely different.
When I think of Philadelphia, I think of the things I love.
I think of broken bottles and mirrors used to make a portal to another world on South Street, and I think of abandoned buildings covered in years of graffiti all along the El—we’re always turning rot into art. I think of the cast of characters one encounters whenever boarding a SEPTA bus, and the mad lads that climbed the traffic poles when we won the Super Bowl—humans, fuckin’ humans, who no one likes, but we don’t care. I think of greasy, perfect cheesesteaks from the bodega that outshine any tourist traps, and I think of city wide shots in dive bars with the bottom shelf whiskey and a bottle of Lionshead—food and drink and merriment that would make a Hobbit blush. I think of sunrises over the Delaware beneath the Ben Franklin Bridge, and the lights that gleam in the trees of Rittenhouse Square—sacred quiet spaces amidst bustling chaos. How they make for beautiful places to find oneself, and to say goodbye.
Still, I think I’m due for an odyssey.
The growth I’ve been through in the last decade has been overwhelming in all the most miraculous ways. I watched the world end half a dozen times, and somehow am still here to type the tale. I’ve lost some of the people who I thought were most important to me in the world, and still kept my pen to the page. I’ve been forced to stare down my own mortality like an enemy at High Noon in a Western, and managed to end every confrontation with a draw—I’ve still got work to do.
So in the next year, I’m excited to (finally) get to it.
I say finally, not like I haven’t been working towards what comes next for years, but because all this time, as I’ve published my own works, found new jobs, and started taking care of my health for the first time in my life, there was one thing still holding me back. It’s the thing that holds us all back in some way or another—fear.
Fear of failing. Fear that the leaps of faith won’t be worth it. Fear that I as a person don’t deserve the endless dreams that have been written into my being.
Feels like time to retire that shit.
This is not to say I will never feel fear again. I know I will. Except these days, when fear bubbles up, I’m facing it down with a mind-set of “you don’t get to win today, mother fucker” and keeping it moving, even if I need to have a good cry first. I have found myself in situations, especially this last calendar year, where I have had to do what feels like the hardest thing I’ve ever done—advocate for myself—and somehow it keeps making me the villain in other people’s stories. That’s never what I intended, because to be honest, I’m not setting out to be a villain OR a hero. I’ve never been a Sauron or a Frodo.
But who I am has always been a little bit Samwise Gamgee—the one who can’t carry it for you, but who will carry you. The friend who fucks up, sometimes a lot of the time, but who’s heart is always trying its best to be honest and loving first. I’m the one who clocks fate in the face with a frying pan yelling something cheesy and dramatic. I’m the one who has more times than I’d like to admit, fallen for my best friends, only to watch them go off to the Gray Havens without me.
I’m the Charlie Bradbury—a nerd who got drunk once at comic con, but who will got to absolute fucking war for you if you hurt my found family. I’m the one who when the apocalypse kicks in, I’m only gonna be good for the pop culture references and passing on the stories. I’m the one who never once apologizes for being queer, even if there’s a lot of people who’d rather I just die off-screen without any fuss.
These characters have their great tales because even if they aren’t the main characters of The Story, they’re still in the leading roles of their own lives, and they aren’t afraid to seize that chance and do whatever they can to make the world shine just a little clearer while they’re here to make a difference.
So this summer, I’m releasing my next book, and in 2025, me, that book, and some of the coolest people I’ve ever met, are hitting the road to write our next chapters. My plan is to take my starry eyed poetry to the Pacific Northwest and put on queer open mic nights in Kansas. I’m gonna roll into Canada with my verses about Philly, and perhaps after the journey ends, I may finally put down roots in another part of the country. Philadelphia has nurtured me into someone I am so proud to be, but I think it’s time I tasted the soil and sun of towns where no one knows my name.
What we’re building is just the beginning, and there is going to be a lot of announcements over the next few months. But one thing I can say with certainty is this—the moves I’m making right now are just the beginning of the next leg of life’s grand adventure.
Till then, here’s to all the exciting things to come between now and next year’s open road. It’s sure to be one helluva journey.
Featured Photo by Olaf Hüttemann on Unsplash
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