I navigated my way along the narrow path ways that had been forever inbedded by the footsteps of the young who've cut their path throughout their years,venturing as I once did throughout these ruins. The narrow trails from brave riders who pedal their way through the past and in between all that has been ruined snaked all around and in between this broken part of the city.
I approached the edge of the world with caution even though I feared not death. I listened to the sound of the Grand Pacifics anger as it pounded away at the end of the earth a deaths flight below me. Visions of the past when I was that braver soul than I am now crept up on me. I took them in then put them away in that dark corner of my mind where the good times are kept. I laughed it all off and continued on.
I made my way past the remnants of all that was once here before the sea decided to take it away. The only signs left now are just pieces of crumbling asphalt and graffiti covered ruins. These cliffs and these remnants of a long ago sunken part of this city served as the untamed and mostly unsupervised playground of my youth. I played hard as that young adventurous boy who I miss so much. Drank even harder as a stubborn young and unsure man along these cliffs.
I stopped and took in the tainted air. The smell of the fuel and the city for now wiped away by the rolling winds coming in from the west. The night was alive with smaller forms of life, crickets,barking dogs, spatting feral cats and the moans of a beaten man seeking shelter in a hole beneath a broken slab of asphalt. The sage bush filled the nightime air with blessings. The salt from the sea almost tickled the nose.
Somewhere in the distance a ship sounded its horn. Sea lions barked in time with the uneven ringing of the ancient bell on the ancient Red buoy as it rose and chimed along with the swells somewhere in that sea of darkness.
I left the broken ruins behind and made my way toward the Park that had been brilliantly positioned along the rim of the world. The memories of happy times struggled with my sadness. The images of better times demanded to be remembered.
I started across the tear soaked grass as I walked beneath beautiful ancient Eucalyptus and Sycamore trees. Pine trees that stood slumped over like the ancient old men they were. I stopped half way to the middle as a one eyed calico feral crossed my path .
I've foraged many a happy memory with old forgotten friends and long departed lovers within this park. Drank when the drinking was done for fun, and laughed that care free laugh I'll never hear again. Fought a good mans fight when the odds were all against me. Evened it out with a tool made for killing. Just one more memory I now live with.
Now after so many years and so much of what this life has thrown before me. I now come here only at night, alone. When its only me the feral cats and the thieving raccoon's. Often times, I'm comforted by the old worn coat I refuse to replace, a cheap bottle dressed in a brown paper bag and a mind still alive with visions of other times than these.
I forget those horrors that still force me out into the night. And take a lonely pull beneath the Moons silent glow. I toast the night and those who dwell within it. I worked on the bottle while staring into the darkness at nothing.
A smile breaks free across my tired face as I look to the moon and realize. This same sacred Moon light that shines upon me is the same distant glow that I know shines somewhere upon her.