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*As in "Welcome to" and where "Gator Country"
means "Los Angeles"
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Gator Country: 23
i watched the sunrise again over central park this morning. it was so quiet, and every day i wake to the sound of cars going by, trucks braking, horns. perched up in this bird cage of a box, everything outside to the right and left is yellow. decaying yellow buildings west and east. i can see the edge of harlem in the distance, yellow and hazy, gray square shapes of buildings. more trucks going by below. the heater starts to bang.
if i lay down, i can see the blue sky. a plane going by again, heading north. a bird or two. now i know why i have only bird tattoos. i want to always be somewhere else, to be able to leave immediately. or at least now.
i close my eyes. the fragile blue sky in my brain, the sound of traffic. i am sitting on the beach, the yellow sand, the blue of the pacific at its edge, the white noise of the waves. i'm forcing those changes in my mind.
i can remember. it was 2003, october: i had left this place and found myself with nothing around but wind, rocks, water and god. i saw you swimming in large white waves, completely unafraid. i didn't want to be anywhere else, for any length of time. we built a little fire at night. you walked me to the edge of the cliffs and played guitar; a cathedral of stars and ocean. there was nothing to remind me of my life, and two days felt like twenty.
california is my home. i did my time here in new york. looking out this dirty window, i realize that this place makes you a proud survivor only so you stay to continue to prove it. it is a prison of concrete and consumption.
i imagine that the whole world looks like this. that outside, the only patch of free land remaining on earth is this rectangle with scrawny trees. and yet, we've still etched asphalt roads and walkways all through it and fenced off the grass. the sunlight is glinting off the buildings to the west, reflecting the hot sun back to the thinning ozone. and there's a white cut across the sky, like this fading blue above the park is getting unzipped open, right here, right now -- and no one's paying any attention because no one looks up in this town.
i'm reminded of something i wrote years ago, new york/wrap your filthy arms around me/todos los dias/your stench and black and gray sky i embrace. i had made peace with it then. i was so good to her. so she brought me back. they said, you can never really leave. of course, you can never really come back, either. so where am i?
today i am sharpening my sword. if there isn't a reason why i'm here, i'll make a reason. because the thought of this city being alive, of the possibility that it has a grip, a memory, and maybe fondness or an advancing vendetta is too much to bear.
quarter after 7. plumes of black smoke to the west and north. yesterday, a friend wrote, asking about fiji in july. i don't know where that is, or if it really exists.
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