The landlord called it
a market adjustment. 

We called it:
Where are we 
supposed to go?

The number 
on the paper 
climbed higher 
than anything 
we could afford. 

Rent went up.
Groceries went up.
The electric bill
learned new numbers.

Everything became 
more expensive 
except the things
we needed most: 
sleep, safety,
a place to put 
children’s shoes. 

They said 
the neighborhood 
was improving.

New buildings 
rose like polished teeth
where old houses
used to smile. 
Coffee shops appeared 
where the corner store 
once knew 
everybody’s name. 

They called it 
revitalization. 

But nobody asked 
the people 
already living here
what needed 
to be revived. 

We were already alive. 

My grandmother’s hands
had touched these walls. 
My mother measured 
our childhoods
against the doorway. 

There are pencil marks 
on the kitchen frame
where somebody kept track 
of how quickly 
we were becoming taller. 

How do you 
put a price on that?
How much 
does memory cost 
per square foot?
How much is 
a childhood worth 
after the lease expires?

They can raise the rent. 
They can repaint the buildings.
They can rename the streets.
They can replace
the cracked sidewalks
with glass and steel.

But love is stubborn.

It stays.
It stays in the recipe
my mother refuses
to write down.
It stays in the neighbor
who still knocks twice 
before entering. 
It stays in the children
playing beneath
the same fire escape.
It stays in the woman
who brings groceries 
to the family upstairs
because she knows 
what it means 
to count dollars
before counting dinner.

Maybe that’s what
the developers 
don’t understand:

A community 
isn’t valuable 
because someone 
finally decided 
to invest in it. 

It was valuable
when we
were the ones 
investing our lives.

And if you ask me
what abundance 
looks like,
I won’t point 
to the luxury tower. 
I’ll point 
to the kitchen table
where eight people
make room for nine,
where nobody asks 
who brought enough,

where the rent went up
but the love stayed.