Where are we?
In Cape Town?
No.
It’s just Pasadena.
Replace the view of ocean with freeways,
The stadium with a bowl,
The rain with snow.
Deserts are just the same.
Switch diversity with culture,
Hills for a flat top.
You know, I’ve never been to Cape Town, or Africa for that matter,
But I’m sure the colors shine brighter along with the stars and the moon.
I bet they have more fun there,
Learn more,
And feel free.
Africa, I long to come to you to be wild
And see all that life can offer out of country and out of mind.
If it rains today,
and only today,
I will be the happiest boy, man, son, child.
Let the waterflow fall from the overpacked nimbus
And let it come over me like a true love, or a subtle look.
Let the peace overtake me,
And strangle me!
And hold me tight,
And capture me!
I want you, I want this.
I don’t want to be the man who crosses the street before the light turns green.
It would later rain that day, to the amazement of others,
And I realized that we take it for granted when others stop at red lights.
At gate 8/gate7,
I stop to write about the freedom adventure through the city’s aboretum,
Or what’s left of it.
I am blown away by the music, it hovers around me,
and the open windows, and how adoring this all is and has become.
I am with a beautiful woman who teaches me something everyday.
And I learn all this on the other side of the hill,
The Hollywood sign: a black and white indicator of a black and white difference.
A difference of noise and peace,
And though I love the noise,
I want the peace,
This peace that has been instilled inside of me today, tonight, my life.
Let’s go home tonight and cherish the moment that has now passed,
A ride home through the noisy peaceful city.
This is brilliance,
This world,
This life.
One rose and half of a candy heart.
One quitter, one believer.
The end of a battery, the security savior.
Seas of tearful water.
Wants and needs colliding.
A drive because we had to, but was later needed.
A false scare of mountain lions,
The exhange of thank you’s.
A realization that not a single flower, let alone a rose, stood along that street,
Except for the spot where we shut the engine off,
Battled,
Then became winners because of your fight, your want.
A definite lack of perfection.
We sat there as children, with one side collapsing.
A belief, or lack of one, that I cannot succeed just yet.
I may not be ready.
But I saw in your words, your fight, your truth,
How something great can become magic.
Thank you, my dear, for giving up a fight when all there was inside of me was quit.
I did not think that I was ready.
You deserved not a single tear, let alone a scare, a frown.
You will grow up with me, hand in hand, and we will take on this scary world together.
A dirty little shit,
Full of the scum of the Earth.
Where the protectors attack you
And the heroes save only your money.
A Texas town with an Oklahoma name.
Caddo, they tell me, is far too spiritual for them, too intelligent, too cultured.
Where do you turn when your authority robs you?
Going 36 might ruin your life.
They think they are walking justice.
Take some of your confiscations, relax.
Not the money stupid, the drugs.
The ones you don’t have.
The ones you look for.
Four square miles of the scum of the Earth.
Scum of the Earth!
I get to watch you sleep as time eases by slowly.
Sometime in the future, will I think this all went by too fast.
Remember that.
But for now I can taste it, touch it, breathe it in.
I can take in every second.
There’s something special going on around here.
I am lucky, peaceful, grounded.
Oh, how I lay here in awe.
Lucky. Peaceful. Grounded.
It’s only the same routine tomorrow that you did yesterday.
And today you awake to a challenge of motivation.
Potentially great. Potentially distant.
Forgotten.
Does anyone even watch the stoplights anymore?
We just follow the car in front of us when it begins the process of motion.
The process we struggle with.
And could I write as long as time continued?
Well, sure, I’d love to go.
But how far will I get this way? How far?
Is there a path that continues on through my method of record keeping?
Oh, would you snap out of it?
This is life after all and all of what you are.
No, these are lies. You have not seen what you will become.
Isn’t the sky more beautiful with stars in it?
Or maybe just the lights on the hill?
It’s just cold enough on this late March night.
The kind of cold that just feels good flowing through your hair, through your body.
Just beautiful enough for me to be reminded of how lucky we are,
How gorgeous the night is,
To enjoy this slow drive home.
I’m goin’ 35 but it feels like 10.
And I’m just watching the leaves dance around my windshield from the front to the back.
And almost on cue the jazz ends, the song ceases it’s melody, the engine stops, I am home.
And somewhere hidden behind the facades dance chimney sweeps atop the roofs.
There’s something magical there if you keep going,
But I cannot continue tonight.
I can only admire what you hold the potential to be.
Somewhere hidden.
Goodbye beautiful facade, I’ll never know the beauty you possess.
You were nothing more than a hope of a dream.
Suddenly I hear nothing,
And the rhythm joy enters my ear canals.
It sings its way through my nervous system
And exits into my brain as it explodes into tiny pieces of music.
I am overcome with a vibrant sensation of notes and melody.
Look how far we have come.
We seem to never run out of luck.
A beach city still seems so far away.
I don’t know exactly where it is,
But it’s not here.
It just gets farther away with every miserable footstep you take up that staircase.