Lost Angeles - Spring

The deepest darkness I could ever imagine. Black nothingness shrouding what once was my life. I don’t know how long I have been here, but it feels like an eternity. And maybe it has been. But I still remember everything. Vivid memories play like a projector casting a light upon this black backdrop and I relive this memory over and over again. I always hope for a better ending, but it never comes. I always end up back here. A constant repeat of the last 9 months of my life from the bright shining sun when I stepped on the beach to the darkness I met in my cold and isolated end.

I’ve tried countless times to pick apart what this repeated tragedy could mean to no avail. I’ve looked through the world’s mistakes. I’ve looked through my mistakes. Still, I watch the worst moments of my life pass me by as an audience member to my pitiful play. Maybe this is where I deserve to be. Maybe this is the better place to be than living in a world of unforeseen misery. But it can’t be, because anything is better than the nothingness that I’m in now.

As the ending approaches and the curtain closes again, I feel a strange sense I’ve not felt before in the seemingly infinite time of witnessing this nightmare of memories; finality, acceptance, peace. While it wasn’t my fault that the world chewed me up and spit me out, I share some blame for the way the world is, as everyone in the world does. The world is undoubtedly a dark place with dark people, but maybe instead of focusing on the way the world mistreats me, I need to consider how I mistreat the world back.

Along with the growing sense of peace, I feel something else. I’ve been here so long that any feeling other than sadness and despair is foreign. The darkness that had overtaken my life begins to ever so minimally lighten one subtle shade at a time. I start to feel again. I can feel my hands. My feet. My skin. I can hear my heartbeat echoing through my body. Lying on my back, my hands dig and feel grains of sand. I feel the curtain lift and I open my eyes.

Here I am again. On this same beach where I was before the storm came. But the sky is noticeably darker than it was. The air is noticeably colder. The city is noticeably quieter. But I’m here.

I stand up, contemplating all that I’ve seen and all that I have been through. Was it a dream? Is this a dream? Am I home? Am I dead? Is there any way to know for sure? Maybe it doesn’t matter. One thing I do know is that my outlook on this life is going to be different than it was before. I’ve lived as an audience member of my own life for far too long. Even before the darkness came.

I decide to turn and walk through the city. All the streets seem new and, despite the darkened sky, my reborn sight casts an ephemeral glow on everything. I can’t recall if the buildings are in their correct places or not, but that doesn’t matter anymore.

As I walk through the city, I pass numerous people going about their own lives. Breezing to work and meetings. Smoking their cigarettes. Flooding into coffee shops. The only similarity between them all are the phones within their hands and their eyes permanently fixed to them. The people walking down the street seem to be walking past each other like this is a dance they have practiced all their lives, narrowly missing each other at every possible collision. Writing posts. Texting. Talking on the phone. Living in their screens, like they are studying their lines, reading for their own part in this drama called “life”.

Out in the distance, I hear a small rumble much like the sound of thunder. Nothing significant enough to break the focus of the actors and actresses staring into their phones, but enough for me to break into a cold sweat. I harken back to what I experienced before and a terrible feeling burgeons in my gut knowing what may be coming for me. This cannot be happening again. What can I do?

The rumble grows louder, and I can hear the people begin to clamor as they look up from their phones, tipping me off that something is definitely amiss.

I look for clouds in the sky. The doomsday cloud that will wipe everything away. But nothing. The same muted gray that I’ve seen since reopening my eyes.

I feel a small shudder beneath me as if the ground is also afraid of what may happen next. Time begins to slow as I hear cracking starting in the distance getting ever closer. Beneath me, what started as a shudder, quickly has risen into a violent shake, tossing the ground from side to side.

While trying to maintain my stability, I spot a nearby park with a small concrete bench that appears sturdy enough to hide under. Hobbling over to the bench, I crouch down and cover my head.

In the most secure place I can find, I am only left to sit and wait, listening to the sounds of chaos around me. The screaming. The honking horns. The earth giving way to its own tremendous force. I can only see the feet of people running for their lives looking for their own places to hide. People are stumbling and falling, with others running by without even stopping to pick someone else up.

The memories are coming back. The fear. The hatred. The uncertainty. It’s too much for me to take. I close my eyes and I withdraw into myself like I did on that summer solstice. But my mind doesn’t return to the nightmare I’ve been living through. It returns to a more peaceful place. To my earliest memories. To the days where I grew up. To the days where I learned how to be me. And to the ones that got me there. Got me here to who I am today. I sat in these memories cherishing them as these may be the last moments that I will ever see in my head.

And then I come rushing back to myself. My conscious self. I’m still under the bench, but the earthquake has ceased, at least for now. I cautiously come out of my hiding place and survey the surroundings. Gathered around me are a grove of trees. The roots underneath must’ve tied the ground beneath me together and saved my life. The earth outside of the footprint of the trees was misshapen. Roads and sidewalks torn apart. Buildings with large gashes in their facades, but the earth around me appeared pristine & intact.

I lift my head and adjust my focus to those around me. Seeing the chaos inflicted on my fellow human beings, I rush to help those around that I can. After aiding the most injured, there is nothing left to do, except to get home, brace myself for any aftershocks that may come, and wait to live another day

Walking home, I take some time to gather everything I had gone through to get to where I am today. I’m not sure whether I’m alive or dead - if this is a dream or reality, but I’m not really all that sure that matters anymore. What actually matters is making the most of whatever life or death – dream or reality - I have. Life is made up of natural disasters, but it’s not about avoiding them; they are impossible to avoid. It’s about how you live through them when they come.

I round the corner and walk onto my street, up the driveway, and into my home. It has never felt the way it does now. But this feeling is not because of the physical place I am, but the mental one. All it took was for everything to fall apart for me to realize that my only true home is buried within my head. The memories, both good and bad, help us decorate our homes as we try to make them a place for us to grow. To survive. To live.

We are a mountain range

Of dormant volcanoes just waiting to erupt

And in the treacherous valleys of my subconscious

There’s nowhere left to run

And when the plates shift beneath our feet

I’m afraid of what the change might do to me

I reminisce of darker days

Because at least they have some certainty

I look back with rose colored glasses

It matches the blood that we poured out

Blind my eyes

From the past that passed me by

But I

Am I ever going to stop missing

Am I ever going to stop missing my past

I

Am I ever going to stop missing

Am I ever going to stop missing my past

I

I may heal from those wounds in due time

But these scars will run deep until my rivers run dry

Buried beneath the skin

Are just my complex wounds

Waiting to be opened again

By future pain that’s remains unknown until then

And here I am

Left in between

Afraid of the present

Because what if these precious moments are just a dream

A paradise lost to my routine

And what is the meaning

Of all of this healing

If these cuts refuse to close

I

Am I ever going to stop missing

Am I ever going to stop missing my past

I

I may heal from those wounds in due time

But these scars will run deep until my rivers run dry

From the cracks underneath my feet

To Mariana buried in the sea

The scars in Mother Earth remind me

That while my scars do not define

They are there to draw the line

From beginning to end again and again

Release, repeat

Release, repeat

Release, repeat

Release, repeat