on the way there
on the way there
A night drive on the 405,
Torrance,
Hawthorne,
Inglewood,
as La Cienega Blvd split Kenneth Hahn
I said,
“This must be it.”
Obama, Jefferson, Blvd,
past that one Target
I went to with
you and your sister,
remember that suite we got upgraded to
and how excited it made me,
but not you;
how many times in life
do we almost quit
before we realize
that we’re in the thick of it?
Fairfax Ave
through Wilshire
past Samy’s, Canters, and the Farmer’s Market,
three weeks in a row
I had gone to see
what the LA scene offered poetry,
black, yellow, brown,
faces from all the races,
but not many like me;
it took a sense of alienation
to breed community.
How many stories
begin in their own way,
but end the same;
it doesn’t have to be that way,
a boat with a hull like a sieve,
all the money leaks out to the rent,
California is goddamn expensive
but it’s the only place where
I’ve explained a dream
and didn’t receive the blank stare of,
“I don’t care.”
Life has difficulties,
but pressure makes the pearl,
like the walk of shame in heels,
at the car
her left front wheel sat on a flat,
she walked to the back
pulled out the spare and jack
changed the tire
and when she finished
he texted back:
SAME TIME TOMORROW?
Her response:
FORGET THAT.
Power in the moment when
we realize the problems we have
are the ones we’ve chosen to be,
God breathing existence
into our eternity,
a time between space and reality,
If one more proposal asks me
to describe who or what
my intended audience looks like,
I think I am going to split,
no wait,
I didn’t say quit;
two very different things
like when one person
is being a dick in a relationship,
I don’t even like rhyming in poetry,
but when I try to explain life
with a narrative
instead of a high five
you give
that blank stare
that I just mentioned
makes me want to no longer forgive,
but mercy
is what we have to see
in order to believe
that at this moment in time
on our journey
we are exactly
where we need to be.