A Love Letter to London
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Author
︎︎︎Cherry Wu
1 April 2025
︎︎︎Cherry Wu
1 April 2025
I’ve accumulated my memories with you over never-ending pubs, chicken over rice, and night strolls along narrow corridors leading to nowhere. A sharp turn onto my left, then my right to reach Bedford Place apartments and a couple blocks down south to conquer the crowds in Covent Garden and the bustle on the packed sidewalks of Chinatown. It’s an accumulation of taking the Northern line to Wimbledon, the Piccadilly and District line to Richmond Park, and the Central line for bagels in Bricklane. I remember the brisk nights atop Primrose Hill and adventurous days exploring Regents Park when traces of summer still appeared stubbornly through the green grass in honeyed light.
As I fervently enter 2026, I’ve tried remarkably hard to preserve your places, corridors, and gardens. To hide them deep beneath the shrubs and sunken into the soil so we are free to grow in all directions: parallel, upright, and sideways, where the foundations are strongly cemented, becoming one with Earth. I tried to keep you a secret for as long as I can before the rumors, the gossip, and the people ruined you entirely. But that’s impossible because I feel like we will eventually get weeded out by the wanderers that walk among us, taking a piece of us day by day. Until there’s nothing left.
In the beginning of my journey with you, I felt like we were running on borrowed time; running on ultimatums, boundaries, and bottles. The city had already packed my bags for me, as if every ticking second in London was a quiet reminder that I was only passing through and never meant to settle. I did not admit to myself that I was living inside a season disguised as a forever, a fragile in-between where consequences softened and real life awaited patiently outside the frame.
As I’ve slowly but surely memorized every crevice on your sidewalk and the wrinkles lines between your wise brick buildings, I was beginning to read you like a face I loved too much to forget. I don’t want to taint the time we have together. While every part of me is grateful to have met you, my head is telling me to go, yet my heart is shouting at me to stay. I’m captivated by your Christmas lights that ignite Oxford St, and the people that rush into you, like bumper cars trying to make their way through. I marvel at how beautiful your autumn colors are, how it’s able to wash over my pale face to make it flush, and perhaps keep me company in such a big city. You yearn for me to stay just a month longer, as if I haven’t dedicated whole seasons of myself to you already. You taunt me with your quiet resilience and patience with my wrong turns and right intentions, venturing in the midst of your streets. I adore your thick posh accents and decorum of afternoon teas, while you respond with 40-minute late buses that never quite arrive on time, grey mornings, rain soaking through my trench, and rent that climbs higher each year as if testing how badly I want to belong here.
I’ve lived and I’ve loved in my time here.
came back to be a better person.
A city that felt like a fever dream.
A city I found intimacy only during
mundane moments
and unassuming forms of life.
I
found
it
slowly
ascending
into
the
London
Holborn
Station,
I found it sparingly grocery shopping at Sainsbury’s and
descending
at
the
Canary
Wharf
stop
for
their
amazing
handpulled
noodles.
I found it walking home from
Westend plays with blisters
and among the naked trees
along Russell Square Park,
one last time
with my three suitcases beside me
and a Blank Street in my hand.
The intimacy I had with you was never from tourist attractions. It was never from visiting the Big Ben or overseeing the London Eye or relishing in Borough market’s eatables. Nor was it from the lust and excitement of traveling here alone. It was from walking around ordinary corners, late night laughter, and the ritual of walking home with sore feet. Contrary to a stressful day and feeling alone, it was from a full heart and warm goodbye kiss, my keys already in my hand before I reached the door, and a warm glow from the living room.
As I fervently enter 2026, I’ve tried remarkably hard to preserve your places, corridors, and gardens. To hide them deep beneath the shrubs and sunken into the soil so we are free to grow in all directions: parallel, upright, and sideways, where the foundations are strongly cemented, becoming one with Earth. I tried to keep you a secret for as long as I can before the rumors, the gossip, and the people ruined you entirely. But that’s impossible because I feel like we will eventually get weeded out by the wanderers that walk among us, taking a piece of us day by day. Until there’s nothing left.
In the beginning of my journey with you, I felt like we were running on borrowed time; running on ultimatums, boundaries, and bottles. The city had already packed my bags for me, as if every ticking second in London was a quiet reminder that I was only passing through and never meant to settle. I did not admit to myself that I was living inside a season disguised as a forever, a fragile in-between where consequences softened and real life awaited patiently outside the frame.
As I’ve slowly but surely memorized every crevice on your sidewalk and the wrinkles lines between your wise brick buildings, I was beginning to read you like a face I loved too much to forget. I don’t want to taint the time we have together. While every part of me is grateful to have met you, my head is telling me to go, yet my heart is shouting at me to stay. I’m captivated by your Christmas lights that ignite Oxford St, and the people that rush into you, like bumper cars trying to make their way through. I marvel at how beautiful your autumn colors are, how it’s able to wash over my pale face to make it flush, and perhaps keep me company in such a big city. You yearn for me to stay just a month longer, as if I haven’t dedicated whole seasons of myself to you already. You taunt me with your quiet resilience and patience with my wrong turns and right intentions, venturing in the midst of your streets. I adore your thick posh accents and decorum of afternoon teas, while you respond with 40-minute late buses that never quite arrive on time, grey mornings, rain soaking through my trench, and rent that climbs higher each year as if testing how badly I want to belong here.
I’ve lived and I’ve loved in my time here.
You’re a place that I will forever hold dear to my heart
and remember it as a city I fell in love with.
A city that I dived into, andand remember it as a city I fell in love with.
came back to be a better person.
A city that felt like a fever dream.
mundane moments
and unassuming forms of life.
I
found
it
slowly
ascending
into
the
London
Holborn
Station,
I found it sparingly grocery shopping at Sainsbury’s and
descending
at
the
Canary
Wharf
stop
for
their
amazing
handpulled
noodles.
I found it in waking up with
tangled hair, and slow mornings
as rain painted my window blurry.
tangled hair, and slow mornings
as rain painted my window blurry.
I found it walking home from
Westend plays with blisters
and among the naked trees
along Russell Square Park,
And in getting lost within you,
I began to understand that maybe
it wasn’t your streets I was searching for,
but a version of myself
that only ever existed here.
I opened my front door to my apartment I began to understand that maybe
it wasn’t your streets I was searching for,
but a version of myself
that only ever existed here.
one last time
with my three suitcases beside me
and a Blank Street in my hand.
The intimacy I had with you was never from tourist attractions. It was never from visiting the Big Ben or overseeing the London Eye or relishing in Borough market’s eatables. Nor was it from the lust and excitement of traveling here alone. It was from walking around ordinary corners, late night laughter, and the ritual of walking home with sore feet. Contrary to a stressful day and feeling alone, it was from a full heart and warm goodbye kiss, my keys already in my hand before I reached the door, and a warm glow from the living room.
For me, London is a person more than a place.
And it will linger within me forever.
I love you.
And it will linger within me forever.
I love you.
