To my hometown, Boise, Idaho,
The city that has held me throughout my youth, sprouted my soul, and nurtured my roots. The place that has housed my heart since the day of my creation, keeping my body steadfast through the wind and the rain, the sun and the storms. You, who has bent me backwards, built me up, and strengthened my core to withstand the weather. Boise, without whom I would never have bloomed, I write with true love and a humble understanding in my heart. It was by you that I was formed, carefully, meticulously,
painfully molded into my shape. You, in your perfect imperfection, your eternally emerging impermanent splendor, with your gentle heart and sharp edges, you warn me that it is my time to uproot. However, I cannot yet bring my heart to heed your warning.
My soul aches at the prospect of leaving as you teeter on the precipice of a profound and painful betrayal of your own heart. If I leave you now, Boise, I fear you may never become my home again. I fear you might crumble beneath the weight of your own
dissonance. I fear I will lose you.
Boise, I remember well the time when I began to love you. I was young and wild, entirely entranced by the sights and sounds of your splendor. I heard the beating pulse of your heart ringing through the streets and alleys ways through which I wandered, and
traced it back into the river running through your core. I remember weaving alongside the riverbed, trying in vain to uncover every line and contour of your frame. During this time, I found others like myself in the fray of your body, who emerged, as I did, from
within your embrace. I recall the intimate, innate knowing between the others and I, as if we were siblings from the same womb, born with our hearts beating in tandem. These kindred souls loved you like I did Boise, and together we set forth to cultivate this love
across your landscape. As we intricately unearthed each of your mysteries, so too did we unearth ourselves. Each discovery taught us, tested us, fed our souls, and fueled our hunger. From somewhere underneath each realization, we uncovered more spaces for art, music, poetry, love, and community to grow. Your landscape was saturated with potential, a vibrant force that seemed to permeate the air in our lungs. We breathed you in and out together. It seemed for a time that every answer could be found somewhere inside you, tucked gently into each and every intricate fold of your landscape, waiting to be uncovered.
Of course, this time of exploration was not without heartache. There were days when I felt you tested me beyond measure, bending me beyond what I believed I could bear. There were months of bitter winter, when I began to doubt that anything wouldever bloom again. There were times when those I loved left my side to be tucked gently down into your rich soil, joining eternally back into the embrace of your body. There were days of bitter wind and rain where I sometimes wished that I, too, could be resting beneath your surface, safe from the cold, unrelenting grasp of my grief. So too were there days of unbearable heat, where I would sweat and toil under the sun, unsure if my endurance could carry me through to another day. But Boise, even when it seemed the night might last forever, holding me eternally in limbo between your body and the stars, the sun would always dawn again above your foothills. The dappled sunlight would dance across your body, returning the color to your surface, and illuminating the ripples in the river flowing through your heart. Somehow, everything, all the times of suffering and heartache, were worth enduring to make it back to your sunrise. With each new day, I found myself returning to your embrace, and joining back to the others who loved you just as I did.
Together, we uncovered reasons to persist through the hardships. We unearthed love, community, creation, and meaning from within your frame. I truly believed that these things would always be found tucked away within your heart for us. But Boise, as I have grown older, I have begun to realize the violence lurking in your shadows. I noticed the pollution steadily gathering in your river, and I felt the piercing gaze of hostility as I travelled through your streets. I watched hatred grow in the spaces meant for love, and I saw grief grow into anger. Seeds of animosity took root somewhere in the shadows, and grew fervently in the shade. They are poisoning your body, clogging up your arteries, and choking out your heart. Your body is becoming a battleground for hatred and greed, caught in the crossfire between persistence anddomination. Boise, your body is at war now. There is a force fettering the edges of your heart, dissecting your body by tearing itself apart. You have become corrupted by an illness that turns neighbor against neighbor, that twists love into hatred, which cannot distinguish between friend and foe. The sickness that plagues you is autoimmune. It
attacks itself over and over, and over again, until the weight of its own dissonance becomes too painful to bear.
I can feel you waning beneath this war, and I am afraid that soon your heartbeat will be smothered beneath this disjunction. I fear that the vibrancy that pulses through your body will fade completely, leaving only your bare frame behind to be meticulouslyconsumed by the insatiable hunger of hatred. I am terrified to lose you to this sickness. Boise, I beg that you do not allow this disease to destroy your heart. Just as the river that runs through you is polluted but still flowing, your heartbeat is dimmed but not yet extinguished. I know that the vibrance within you can persist, but only if you do not let this sickness find an enemy. All who emerged from your body are born of the same womb, with our hearts beating in tandem. We are of the same flesh and blood. We walk the same streets, we run through the same parks, and we submerge beneath the same river. We must not become each other's enemies, or I fear we will lose you in the fray. Boise, you must not let the sickness win. You must persist through this violence, lest you betray your own heart. For all those who know and love you as I do, you must continue to resist. I cannot bear to lose you beneath this dissonance.