So Long, Bushwick

This is going to be my last weekend in Bushwick. I can't say I'm exactly sorry to go. On Monday the moving truck comes and all of my stuff will be put into storage for two weeks until I can move into my new apartment. I'm moving to a neighborhood that actually has stores and restaurants, banks and pharmacies. Delis that sell more than ossified cookies and rolling papers. When I first moved here, my dad asked me if I knew where to buy drugs and I did. But I still haven't found a clean supermarket that sells more than chips and rotten produce.
I won't miss the dirty dusty streets dotted with dog poo and chicken bones. I won't miss having to scrub my feet of ingrained dirt on days I wear flip flops. Least of all, I'll miss the old men yelling Mami at me and blowing exaggerated kisses. I was used to catcalls from living in Manhattan but all the learing leachery made me want to lock my self in my apartment and only emerge wearing a burka. I won't miss the strange smells that billow up to my window from my neighbors' kitchens; today I can't decide if it is a gas leak or rotten chicken liver. I won't miss the noise, either, from the hipsters on the roof or the distant roar of a PA system. Some nights I wonder if I hear cars backfiring or gun shots. Most nights I just turn the tv up and try not to think about it. Maybe I'll miss the crowing of the rooster at the slaughterhouse a few blocks down, but I won't miss the smell from all the chickens, geese and rabbits kept in small cages.
Now I have to run breathing in the exhaust from the BQE, in a couple of weeks I'll be close enough to Prospect Park to run there.
I never for one day forgot that I didn't belong here. Every walk to the corner, ever ascent up the stairs to the subway station; I felt as if I had two heads. The accusatory looks, the sidelong glances; I always felt as if I were an attraction at a zoo. The only thing that made it bearable was my daily escape into Manhattan.