I once cried, half-drunk, in the Manchester rain,
alone and afraid, but you didn’t feel the same.
The slightest touch, and your voice drove me insane;
my heart would flutter every time you’d call my name.

Now I return, to the city that was ours:
the Manchester I once knew, unyielding and hard
now filled with smiling people, laughing in bars.
My heart, no longer full, is no longer scarred.

– MLC, 24 April 2014