by Andrew Benham

Created on: August 27, 2008

I found out what it means, to miss New Orleans

Dallas apartments are cold and bare
when you are 200 miles from your home.
For nine months I almost froze to death
in that small one bedroom apartment.
None of the sleek boutiques on Beltline Rd.
could sell me the cure for a broken heart.
I spent my days dreaming of the Mississippi River.
Of how I would sit along its banks
and get loaded of off the musky summer breeze.
I feel that breeze blowing sometimes,
but I know it is only a misguided dream.
I spent my sleepless nights
crying, hoping, and praying
for one more night in the caring embrace
of my bed back home in the big easy.
I could not get used to the Dallas lifestyle.
It could have been France for all I cared.
Where was its history, charm, pulse.
Where was its Gumbo.
I was too home-sick to appreciate
the New-Age essence of Dallas.
I had taken advantage of my own home town.
I feared that it was gone forever.
I knew it had changed
and I knew I must change as well,
before it all become lost in the rivers of time.
Those days are over now.
I am back on my feet in my home stomping ground.
I have been reborn on the streets of New Orleans.
This place will never be the same,
but neither can I.

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