In Memoriam, St. Augustine - Aug. 31, 2013

I will miss you, St. Augustine.

I will miss your barefoot, sandy retreats, swallowed in heat despite all the air conditioning my empty pockets could buy, your window wake-up call at 7 a.m. that I never figured out how to avoid, your insistence that I never fell asleep before 4 a.m., three days straight, eyes wide open.

I will miss your guilty pleasure in yourself, your narcissistic nose buried deep in your own history books, your boastful ads on my imaginary TV screen, your drone, your buzz, your jubilee, your flatulence, your sweaty promise that you were the oldest and that would never change, even if there was a town in Maine that challenged your claims.

I will miss your caffeine rush, your cold coffee – black, nonetheless – that entered my bloodstream once, every day, between the hours of 11 and 12, because I had just discovered you, Hyppo, and you were new and you were fresh and exciting despite my perspiring wallet.

I will miss your empty wine glasses that I left hanging on windowsills and doorstops like bread crumbs to follow back into safety, your little lies whispered to me as I sat and stared at the moon and the stars and believed that this was adequate for grief, this was adequate for peace.

I will miss walking on your naked shores with only my boxers on and a sleeveless T-shirt that my sister would have yelled at me if she had seen me in, miss your breezy spray, miss your sudden tidal wave, miss your moon that hung bright for three days and then turned off, miss your footsteps laid after I ran every night by that same very light.

I will miss your lesson in loneliness, your year-long breakup, your inevitable crash, your reminder that you are truly alone because you are the only one on this beach and there is an endless ocean ahead of you and no one for miles, except for the blinking green light, a warning for those who might have lost their way (and a hope for those who haven’t).

I will miss your alcoholic dreams, your tobacco lips, your pigeon streets, your ambling gaze, your callous drip, your naval-gazing wit, your spite, your terror, your bug spray, your arrogance, your silliness, your White Lion, your Local Heroes, your A1A, your homeless, your crazies, your cathedrals.

I will miss the idea of your Friday art walks, though I never went to one, and your Rembradtz and your Galeria Del Mar, and hours spent walking along St. George Street and then drifting between artistic ecstasy and inarticulate despair, staring from outside the window and then walking inside, staring into the fiery shadow of a girl who I have never met.

I will miss you, Ginsberg, and your self-indulgent ways and your conversations with yourself.

I will miss your 2 a.m. and still wandering, your Bridge of Lions, your fort, your shell-rock, brittle and cutting your feet, and the one night when I went running into your sea, with all my clothes, and my friend in her dress, and my other friend who lost his keys and his cell phone and we had to drive him back, soaking wet.

I will miss your excess and your tragedy, your beauty wrapped in every bitter drop of salt and sweat (it burned my eyes, but that is kind of the point), your hipster jeans and cheap cigars, your conversations with Meg Ryan, late at night, pointless, but made all the same.

I will miss you, but maybe

I won’t forget you.