A Love Letter to London

London, you met me not with the gray chill I expected, but with heat — the kind that made me sweat through two outfits a day and crave pistachio lattes just to cool my spirit. You burned with sun and energy, a city alive and pulsing.

You reminded me that independence is hard, innit — but even harder is forgetting that strangers can be angels. To the man who carried my luggage down the stairs, the girl who steadied me on the escalator, the couple who caught my runaway suitcase on the Underground — you are part of this story too. You are the reason I felt held in a city where I knew no one.

Brixton, you fed me soul food through Obi, sunshine in human form. You reminded me of the power of keeping a city Black, alive with music, history, and resistance. You whispered that my roots don’t just live in one country — they stretch across oceans.

At the festival, with Cleo Sol and Sault, spirit poured through speakers. It wasn’t just music — it was scripture set to rhythm, gospel in disguise. I left early, but maybe that’s because not everything sacred is meant to be consumed all at once.

London, you gave me mirrors. In your Zara racks where clothes were cut just for me. In your women who told me my hair was perfect, even in humidity. In the stranger on the train with the same tattoo I share with my mother — a heart wrapped in infinity. A reminder that I carry eternal love with me, everywhere. That even here, I am tethered. That I am seen.

And you gave me sweetness too — the laughter of the waitresses at the prosecco café, the kindness of the hotel staff who cared for me like family, the playfulness of the Love Shack, the boldness of the Vagina Museum, the treasures tucked into vintage shops on Brick Lane, the tradition of Italia, and the flowers that bloomed for me at Columbia Road.

And so, I cried when it was time to leave. Because I didn’t just visit you, London. I met you. You opened your arms and your sharp edges, your accents and your silences, your food and your flowers, and you said: This too can be home.

Until we meet again,

Z