She is a city made of windows and silence. People look through her, not at her. But she remembers all of them—the ones who left, the ones who stayed, the ones who swore they’d only be here a little while. She doesn’t blame them. She keeps their warmth in her bricks anyway.

Inside she glows, the heat from centuries of summers passing through, leaving the scent of humanity wafting through her many corridors. And in winter, even when strings of ice fall their way down aged grotesques on cathedral spires, she holds her heat. She is a heart that beats with the blood of October leaves, and June sunsets, painted with swaths of magentas and violets and oranges so bright, you could pluck them from trees. And tulip petals—fluttering like sand in an hourglass—tumble through her streets each spring, delicate and impermanent.

She has a life. A whole universe inside her—streets like veins that feed into arteries of neon, noise, ethos. People like blood cells carrying oxygen and love, hate and anger, sadness and reverie into every sidewalk crack, every stray pebble, every water stain on a bar top, jaded from too many stories—and yet somehow not enough of them.

She is where old meets new. Where towering stripes of steel and brutalist concrete kiss stucco and neo-gothic brownstones, where the rounded meets the rigid, the smooth bleeds into rough. Where cobblestones meet blistering blacktop.

She’s seen them both.

Shoes shined so bright, they could speak to satellites—bureaucratic and political and corporate. And the others: worn, beer-stained shoes on sticker-covered stages, hearts pounding, congregating beneath stage lights, in queue, waiting for their own.

She makes no distinction.

She holds them all.

Fraternal twins, born of the same foundation—one shaped by suits and steel, the other by rhythm and residue. Different ways of moving, breathing, being.

A gentle limbo.

Where small town stillness meets metropolitan mania.

But both hers.

Her eyes glow, golden from within, a spectrum from without.

She doesn’t ask for much. Just a glance, maybe. A recognition of strength, of dignity. A moment of your breath held tight a little longer than usual. You pass her every day and don’t even notice the way she softens your shoulders, or keeps your secrets in the cracks of her concrete.

Do you see the history in her gaze? In her road lines, and her stop signs, and the soft pull of a smile—when the timing is kind. See her there, with an audience of laughter and tears, singing and screaming, agony and ecstasy—in marital beds, on peeling barstools and streetcorner barters, and on well-worn honkytonk stages. Rooms upon rooms teeming with life.

Listen to her breathe—steady and easy.

It’s gasoline. It’s garbage. It’s the bright scent of tulips and food trucks, the sizzle of hot oil. It’s cigarettes and weed, and the lazy calliope of a wandering ice cream truck, or the wail of a siren. The scrape of a snowplow. Gun shots and window-rattling bass, basketball courts and the splash of pools, soaking in vibrant aquamarine. The slow crawl of thunder across an ominous sky, the flicker of bright fractals of light, and the way rain finds its way onto your skin, falling from the sky in drops so heavy, they land like secrets—slow, quiet, and warm against your skin, like someone you miss brushing past.

Do you see her smiling at you? She loves you, unconditionally. She loves what you’ve become—but don’t mistake her silence for pride. Sometimes, you break her heart. Maybe she raised you. Or maybe she welcomed you like she always does—without asking where you came from. She is… indelible.

Commune with her. She holds you. Romances you. She yearns to be more than a space for your grievances. She hopes to be a mirror of your hopes and dreams, cheering you from the sidelines, even if you choose to never meet her eyes. 

She knows you. She is the outstretched arm just asking for a little patience.

Oh, Albany. You weave together so many threads, the tapestry you’ve made tickles the love in us all. Let her breathe. Let her settle between your ribs, a homesick cry married to a plea to leave. When you wake, she’ll still be there.

Streetlights blinking like lullabies.

Steam curling out of her chest like breath.

Waiting, patient, proud.