I feel like I have wandered for years in her streets. When I stumbled, she picked me up; when I was in danger, she guided my step to safety; when I was at my wits end, she sent me a sign. She has been my comfort, my destiny and my provocation. It is here that I have sought and, incredibly, I have found.

She is quirky and peevish and unreasonable. But she is also languid, voluptuous and for the taking. I have been taking her now each day for years. I have become subtly addicted to her ways. I have been ruined for any other life and I don’t much care.

I was blown into her fold like a lamb in a storm, pushed into the only shelter to be found. Like many other wanderers, I ended up here because I did not know better.

She is the mother seed, the beggar and the viper who demands absolute devotion. You must worship at her knees and devour her. You must devour her each day, deprive her of her strength, or she will rise up and destroy you. You must keep her languorous or she becomes the angel of destruction that will undo you.

She lies on the water’s edge adoring herself slowly. She is blithely undecided. You cannot force her hand in anything. She follows her whims cheerfully, as if there were no other way to spend one’s days.

Mornings, I leave her bedside, glad to be free of those feminine encumbrances. Yet each night I come back to her. Her kisses cannot be trusted nor can the taste of them be forgotten.

Time has stopped for me. I do not know how many years I have been here. I only live to repeat another day. Endlessly.

The city, which had been my refuge, has become my cell. Like a prisoner, I dream of an outside world I vaguely remember. Beyond the confines of my cell, I see nothing for as far as I can tell, there is nothing.

This city is the figment of my desires and I project them on the buildings and cobblestones around me. It is these stones and not my volatile desires that hold me to the ground, encumbering me lest I float away.