Lost Angeles - Summer

Narrative

A solstice sun rose over the city’s skyline; an ephemeral glow outlining the facades. A picturesque day without a cloud in the sky. The concrete jungle was alive with activity - cars, buses, and trucks filled the streets. Windows were thrown open to their hinges’ limits to let the sunlight into stuffy offices. Beyond the city, the shimmering glow of the sun skimmed off the ocean waves. And sandwiched between these two dichotomies, a beautiful stretch of beach. A seamless transition from sidewalk to sand to water. And that’s where I found myself.

The day was perfect. Not a thing out of place while I watched the waves wash against the shore. Where they met, both forever altered, but it didn’t matter, for their meeting, and its result, was always inevitable.

I was alone. With the city at my back and the ocean at my front, I found the semblance of peace that I came here searching for. I had once loved this city - my hometown - but as I grew up, my disenchantment with it grew with me. The only times that I could feel myself again were on this beach in the quiet air, connecting with the small stretch of nature in an otherwise urban landscape. The sand was the only solace I knew.

As I took steps out onto the beach, the sand was hot to the touch, but my skin quickly became numb to the burn. I closed my eyes. The sun beat upon my skin as my feet sank into the sand. I could hear the waves crash against the shore and the traffic distantly behind me. Balance. I felt a breeze. Subtle at first but it grew. Grew to a stiff wind flowing off the water into the city. Through my eyelids, the light distorted and turned from an orange glow to the blackest black that you only see when you fall asleep at night.

I opened my eyes to the darkest clouds I had ever seen filling the sky above me. The city was silent, unconscious. But the world around it was awakened. The waves no longer rolling on the shore but roaring, pummeling the shoreline. The city, my home, was instantly under attack by the sky. And I turned and ran. I ran so hard, but my feet couldn’t carry me fast enough. I felt the sky collapsing down onto the earth, like a shark closing its jaws upon the city. The sky grew darker and darker still.

And then the sky unleashed its hell upon me. The rain came pouring down. I didn’t know where to go, so I kept running to try to escape the doom that was falling upon me. The doom that must have been building for so long. I can’t recall if there was anyone else trying to escape as well, but no matter where I went, I was trapped; cornered by this unstoppable force. It chased me through the streets as I tried to make it home. I pressed on through the darkest of dark and as I rounded the corner to see my home, my haven, I was met with the unsettling truth. The storm’s eye passing over casted a momentary light and there it was. The house, torn to shreds. Beaten and battered by the sky’s fury.

I ran to the house and opened the front door, which was half off its hinges. The inside was devastated, but I knew I needed to try to grab what I could. I found a duffel bag inside and frantically began to fill it with anything I could find, desperate to save what I could.

As the eye passed, the torrential downpour began to take over once again. Bursting through any crevice of the house. The walls groaned as it took on the weight and, as the water continued to rush in, it gripped my ankles and desperately tried to pull me under. I knew I needed to leave. I grabbed my duffel bag and scrambled to the front door. The water levels had risen significantly in the brief time I was inside and there were no signs of letting up. With adrenaline flowing through my veins, I ripped the front door off the remainder of the hinges and clung to it. The only remaining thing of my home that gave me hope.

The water rushed through the streets. I laid on the door placing the duffle bag next to me. I gripped the door so hard my knuckles turned white and I shut my eyes. I felt the water splashing on me. I heard screams, crashes, infrastructure tearing at its seams around me. I pleaded with myself to wake from this awful nightmare, squeezing my eyes shut as hard as I could and refusing to open them. My mind showed me mercy and blocked out my remaining senses as I became a numb mass floating though the city streets.

I remained in this self induced darkness for hours, refusing to accept this wasn’t a dream. Slowly, I began to convince myself that I was still in my bed waiting for the alarm to go off and start another meaningless day. A meaningless day that I now craved. However, when I opened my eyes the dream came crashing down.

I was floating in the middle of the bay, dragged out by the current. My one place of solace now a water grave of my past. I knew my life would be forever changed. Everything I knew was gone, taken by the storm. And the city. The god forsaken city. The years and years of all that building in a battle with one storm, and it was gone. It took the bad. It took the good. And left me with nothing. As I drifted into the vast emptiness, the remains floated around me. Memories. My demons, my angels. Torn at the seams. The hell in the sky, gone, replaced with a numb grey.

I couldn’t live anymore. I couldn’t live like this with these ravaged memories. Gone forever. I felt empty, like the sky had taken every piece of me. I knew I needed to move on and find something new. I needed something to believe in. I needed hope.

And there it stood. A sole beacon in the grey sky. A lighthouse rose from the jagged shoreline. And I started paddling. With every stroke reaching for this new glimmer of hope. As if it was destiny for me to reach it, the current pulled me in. The waves lifted me and carried me to the rocky shore.

The shore welcomed me back to land. My hands gripped the earth, but it felt more like the earth gripped me. I stood and grabbed my duffel bag that I managed to keep with me. The water continued to lap onto my makeshift raft. Once I got my footing, as if the water suddenly became acid, I quickly backed away, afraid it might attack me once again.

Turning away from the wreckage, I moved inland towards the horizon light emanating from the mirador. I scaled up the hillside, stumbling on rocks, but keeping my vision focused on my beacon. The strobe of light rotating around the lighthouse cast shadows in my wake. My eyes refused to part with it. It gave me hope, shining a light in my darkened world and before I knew it, I had reached the base. I craned my neck to see the massive structure staring down at me and I finally saw it for what it was.

The lighthouse wasn’t a beacon to reach, but a light pointing forward, leading me from the darkness of my past. Telling me to press on and find a new path. To leave every mistake that I had made behind and begin anew. So I did. I followed the path of the light to the North - towards what appeared to be a forest. I had no idea what I would find, but it would lead me away from the pain I felt. And in this time of vulnerability, I thought that was all I had needed.

Lyrics

Shadow of the Sun

In the shadow of the sun

There’s a paradise along the shore

I used to call my home

I’d walk along the sand

To find the pleasures of a clouded mind

That seemed as clear as the ocean waves did

Swaying trees within the breeze

Gave me a haven from that deafening sound

Oh, gracious thief

Give me relief

Take away this reality

And take me to that ocean white with foam

Hide me from the awful things I’ve known

But I can’t go back everything has changed

When the storm came and washed that lie away

Another Side of Paradise

The wind is calling out our names

As black clouds open up to reveal the truth

And that truth came falling down

A flowing river from the sky

Crashing into our concrete forest

A burden clouds could no longer bear

Rocks falling from the sky

Tearing through the facades we knew

Winds carry cries of our lives

Calling for the truth

Life is calling

We would wake and smell the rose

That grows from the sidewalk

And watch it wither in our hands

As the plastic oceans washed away our innocence

In the shadow of the sun, we were paralyzed in a blinding lie

But when it all falls down, I see another side of that paradise

A wall of water crashes on the sand

In search of more to take from us

The water races down the boulevard

Homes are pulled under the wake

It looks for mine

It looks for yours

And just before it breaks

In the eye of the storm

I see the spotlight cast its rays

Upon all that we once knew

All we once knew

We’d walk along the rising tide

To escape our troubled minds

But now we board up the windows and brace for the crash

Where do we go when we have nowhere to go?

What do we see when we weren’t taught how to know?

Where do we go when we have nowhere to go?

What do we see when we weren’t taught how to know what’s next?

Drown

I fought my inner demons for years and years

Watched this pen stab the paper

Bleeding through bleeding through

Spent too many sleepless nights dreaming of the past

Where did it all go wrong?

Moving on

In the depths past mistakes consumed

Saturated earth eroding away

Memories exhumed

The sky above will come crashing down upon your head

Then you will know how it feels to be alone

And what you knew floats away a memory

But in every loss you gain space to grow

And with the bad there is good

That is pulled out past the breakwall

And washed out to sea

We may dream of what it was

We may weep of what it couldn’t be

But it will always be a part of me

It’s alive in the rivers that flow through my skin

And pour out of the oceans in my pen

The sky above will come crashing down upon your head

Then you will know how it feels to be alone

And what you knew floats away a memory

But in every loss you gain space to grow

I am a ship lost out at sea

I feel the life boats abandoning me

I am a vessel

You are the wind in my sails

And the current pulling me back home

I am a vessel

You are the compass

You are the anchor I carry everywhere I go

The sky above will come crashing down upon your head

Then you will know how how it feels to be alone

And what you knew floats away a memory

But in every loss you gain space to grow

You can only know the darkness because you’ve seen the light

And there is light on the horizon, there is light, there is

The Lighthouse

A lighthouse stands against a jagged shoreline

The spine of the earth rising from the waves

A restless light living on the borderline

Of what we know and what we don’t

A question unanswered

Is it showing me the way or showing me the ones that I lost

A beacon or a searchlight

Illuminate the way away from home

Invading shadows passing through the meadows

But steadfast is the lighthouse

In the blackest nights in my darkest days

Help me find a way out

Through the tortured skies through this endless haze

Still the lighthouse points true north

I felt it cast its gaze upon me

For just a second but it felt like an eternity

Like the eyes of God

It stared right through my transparent skin

Looking for some life within

Is there something left? Is there nothing?

I feel my inner self so intertwined

What will it find?

A piece of hell or peace of mind?

I cast a shadow upon where I’ve been

It illuminates the path ahead

Every step a brighter light

Until I venture beyond

But steadfast is the lighthouse

In the blackest nights in my darkest days

Help me find a way out

Through the tortured skies through this endless haze

But what if we lose the light along the way

and darkness takes its place

Well come whatever may

Even darkness has its day

Still the lighthouse points

I’ll take the path less traveled

The one I’ve only seen in my nightmares

And while my shadow darkens the path ahead

I’ll press forward into the unknown

Everyday I look ahead

I walk this path to be a better version of myself

And when that great blue ocean above opens up

Embrace the flood

It can wash you clean free you from the mud

Embrace the flood

It can wash you clean