I lost myself once upon a time
in a place that was only whispered to me in dreams.
Where the fog is thick and threads through the seams
of street lights and street cars with *** fights and brillo bars.  
I tell you I lost myself on the tongue of insanity
who swallowed my soul to feed its humanity.
I lost myself
in a city that found me;

San Francisco, 2013

Let me extend two points like two bridges
that begin in separate places but lead to the same thing.
I’m talking the people in both hands with countless art in between.

The people, the people, the people.
What can’t be said about the near million faces
sleeping on warm pillows or cold stones,
wearing top hats or traffic cones
because not every night are people thriving.
But they’re still surviving, getting busy living or getting busy dying.
In their eyes are stories being told
once you wipe those windows into their souls, deep.
You see it all,
Just like every star in the fall when the sun goes to sleep.
I gave a homeless man a dollar who gave it to another homeless man who then gave it back to me
Like we were passing a love note that said, “You need this more than me.”
So which of us was the one without the home?

Home I soon found in the art of every step taken,
one foot in front of the next.
I can’t walk through that city discounting the side effects.
I was drunk,
but not from bottles or cans
I was drunk from the hands
that told tales with graffiti art to camera pans.
and countless other melodies
massaging bricks into the landmarks that spanned.
Culture sprinkling up and down the hills and between the cracks
Painting colors in the sky as the rainbows stacked,
Finding pots of gold by merely lifting my eye lids back.

There is so much to say about this city in the bay,
that is held in place by the people of race
and the vessels of art that encompass in its space
like stories and attitude,
survival and gratitude,
muse and expression
in delight or depression.

I tell you I lost myself in that city.
But I know now that being lost is sometimes the only way to be truly found.

How to begin such a unforgiving time.
A time where mother dearest was never home.
A time father drank four bottles of Strawberry flavored *** a night to forget the times back in the desert.
A time where my sister never spoke to me, didn't know where to find me.
A time my brother sexually harassed me for months at a time.
A time I dragged a cold  jagged thin piece of rusted metal across my thighs.
But
What about the good times?
Times where Mom called me first.
Or when dad spent time with only me.
Even when my sister came to visit me on her birthday.
Maybe even the days my brother and I stayed up playing video games.
And maybe that time I-

Downed a bottle of pills.
Spent 4 weeks in a recovery center only to be shipped to Philadelphia for further treatment.
Or when I thought I fell in love for the first time with the boy who wasn't quite a man.

There's times where I still wake up not wanting to get out of bed but I do. and that means maybe not today or tomorrow I will make good times with myself.

I drift in the wind with the leaves
and I become a planted seed everywhere I journey to,
But I am lonely
I am trapped inside a wanderers mind
and I have no way of escaping,
So I leave;
Leave reality.
I’ve lived in a fantasy of optimism and distance
Since birth.
I am so different and naive;
I am learning how to forgive my mind for being the way it is
I am learning how to find myself
And I am so lost

What I long to be
Is just beyond reach of me
Because to be what I long to be
Would mean to lose my goal
Completely

To let go
Of what I know
I can achieve
Is to look in a mirror and say
I don't believe.

To walk this middle path
Between victory and art
Is a life half lived and never fulfilled.

Who am I?
I don’t see who I thought I was in the reflection of this mirror.
I see a girl with faded lines at her mouth, the remnants of her laughter.
I see the crinkles at the corners of her eyes; her eyes used to smile.
Her mouth is a straight line, her laugh only a memory.
Her eyes are tired and glazed, uninterested and unfocused.
Where did that girl go?
I feel her inside, I want to smile and laugh,
But I don’t have the strength to try.
Everything is a task, an arduous task that I cannot attempt
Lest I fail, for then the pain of failure adds to my pile of emotions.
I am exhausted; I cannot feel anything anymore.
Why can’t she try to return?
I have saved every last drop of pain, stored it in my soul.
No one should have to feel pain, I’ll feel it for them.
Everyone should be happy, even if I am taunted by their joy.
She knows that I have reasons to be happy, she makes me aware.
But happiness is energy better offered to the “common good”.
How did I lose her, anyways?
She was adventurous, that girl I used to be; she had *****, so to say.
She let herself feel freely, falling in love painlessly, easily.
That love turned against her, threw away every definition of trust she knew.
I had to protect her, hide her from the pain.
So I put on my armor, and stood strong in her place.
When did she disappear?
She stayed hidden for a while, a warmth trying to break my cold heart.
She’s the smile that cracked my stone face, if only for a moment.
But she was pushed away to make pain easier to handle.
She got tired of trying to make me feel emotion.
She’s still there, deep down, but she hasn’t put forth any effort in a long while.
What will bring her back?
The fleeting moments of giggles and cuddling,
The warmth of a hand over mine,
The strength of two arms enveloping me in a hug,
The patience of a voice that brings her out of me;
Love.
Love will her back to me.