its funny how we are in the same city now, yet I feel the farthest I have ever felt. we drift our separate ways with the constant hum of traffic and the rising heat. something between us is unsettling, the friction stings and my body grows empty and gray when I leave your sight. But when the grayness passes and my time of being unacknowledged and mistreated is over. I know the freeness of before and with each pedal on the sidewalk and the bumps in the pavement, I grow stronger. the cuts you've left inside my walls begin to heal and the palm trees stand tall against the California sunset.