Just Kids was Patti Smith keeping her promise to her long-term boyfriend and lifelong best friend, Robert Mapplethorpe. This book completely stunned me and left me nostalgically longing for a space in time I'd never even experienced. We follow Patti as she moves from her small town to the big city. We read tales of her being homeless on the streets of New York city, starving and searching desperately for work. We witness the relationship with Robert unfold and bloom into something truely beautiful. Two starving actors, living off each others presence and the desire, the need to create. We drink in the tales of 1970's New York and the art scene and their individual rises to fame told all through Patti's beautifully poetic lens. Their relationship crashes due to Robert's repression surrounding his homosexuality culminating in Patti travelling. Upon her return they re-unite and promise to one-another that they will not leave until they know they're both going to be alright. Patti writes beautifully, a true poet. She conjures intense mental images of a world forgotten by time but never by her. It confront the hardships that she endured with a highly creative and closeted partner - the love of her life. The ending in which Robert succumbed to AIDS was heartbreaking and I genuinely shed a tear.