Took the subway downtown today.
Did every New Yorker's tube routine
of refilling my card with markers
and went underground.
I was all smiles.
For me this was a dream come true.
sitting in the chromed cars I've seen
on film since my grafitti adolescence.
Back then Stockholm's green and blue cars
were a sad mockery to every writer's exquisite taste
and sleepless nights of hard work.
We were true artists. But outlaws.
In a perfect world
we would have sat in their office
smoking peace pipe with their chiefs and said
"No, don't color 'em, idiot. Leave 'em like that.
Chrome 'll be just fine, thank you.
We'll add the color ourselves."





I went to SOHO and bought a pair of jeans.
Then ate my dinner in an organic food restaurant,
The man at the table next to me asked where I was from.
Originally born in Kongo, I told him,
but raised and living in Sweden.
He said he was from Puerto Rico
and was raised in New York.
But, he said, he had felt like part of himself was missing,
as if disconnected from his soul
and had gone to stay in Puerto Rico for five years,
learning spanish and embracing his true heritage and culture.
Only then did the pieces fall into place
and he became whole, he said.





I thought about Africa
and how I've always wondered
how come I'm not drawn there.
"You gotta connect with your heritage
and find yourself before ya die" he said.
I looked at him and he nodded.
Before ya die" he repeated seriously.
And in his eyes I read him saying
"America does things to you.
You better know who you are.
Or it will turn you into somebody you aren't."