The Yellow Line train has some of the weirdest folks I’ve ever seen. The Green Line is a spectacle of a different nature; it’s one I’m familiar with, though. Thick Poetic Justice-like braids and blue lipstick is common in my city. Locks and Durant’s are common in my city. The city that I knew, anyway. This is a whole other world to me. The backpacks have been replaced by rolling suitcases and undone ties. This is new to me…but very necessary.

I ran away from it all. You can call me a quitter or whatever you want but I can’t do it anymore. To hell with the blogs, to hell with the Red Line and to hell with this transient ass city. As soon as I fly out of Reagan to my next forever, you can ‘DMV’ it up as much as you want…

I didn’t want to leave but I had to. Every shift from the black, white, and gray Sobiato sweatsuits to the red H&M skinny jeans nudged me to this point. Each gentrified neighborhood and random condominium construction ate at my love for a place I never planned to defend so fiercely. When did D.C. become a destination city for young people? An entire dream city for young Black people, at that. Go and ruin Atlanta some more. Y’all went and closed one Beautiful Restaurant down there; do y’all really have to come up here and pack Stan’s to the point I just shrug and put on my iPod headphones and head back to the McPherson Square station and quietly fume? I can’t even get a half-smoke at Ben’s Chili Bowl without a line of tourists murmuring ‘Bill Cosby used to come here all the time’; take your JELL-O and walk off a bridge in search of a spoon, please. I asked nicely so now you kind of HAVE to do it. Bye *insert wave emoji here, iPhone users*

That’s why I’m on this flight, cuddled in between two fat women that don’t mind me laying my head on their rolls. ‘Luchini’ is blasting in my Apple Beats (or whatever Dre agreed to let Jobs’ sons call these headphones) and I refuse to lean over to view what I’m leaving. No way I’ll miss Gallery Place and all the under aged kids barred from every restaurant outside of the McDonald’s and Chipotle in the Verizon Center. Those bar crawls in DuPont Circle won’t mean anything to me. Who cares about those Fort Stevens fights on the basketball courts? Not I. I’m gone. Gone forever. To where, I don’t know. I was your prince; whoever supplants me will never hold you in higher regard. I left all my Shooters gear in my mother’s attic; maybe I’ll hit you up when I get to wherever I wind up…

“Welcome to Cleveland-Hopkins International Airport.”

Goddamnit…

To be continued…

A.J. Armstrong is the creator of The Fly Hobo and His World of Oddities. He’s also stuck in Cleveland. Part 2 coming soon…because Cleveland is pretty bad…