It is bedtime in the city
Where if you squint your eyes real tight
The lights are pretty
Fireflies
Making moving streaks across the skies

I want my own magical compass in this dense population
I want to follow a philsopher
I want my hairstyle to be such a statement that no one has to ask what kind of music I listen to
I want my sneakers to announce what I believe, what I do and where I go

This city where everyone has an agent to speak for him
Cuff links and stripper heels that take ten percent

I don't
I get my hair cut at Fantasic Sam's for twenty four dollars I don't follow anyone, no philosophers no sneakers no stripper shoes

so guys always open with, what music do you listen to?
Sam doesn't help me make it obvious
if it ever could be.
I always answer
Everything


It is late at night
Bedtime in the city
And the heliocopters pass overhead
Touring these hills for insurgents
Or traffic

Or both

i keep finding
that as i do what i do to the best that i can do it
and then move on

i look back and want to apologize
to those people and projects i was back then

want to say i am sorry for being unaware
or scared
or just bad at art

and i want to be proud
maybe someday i'll be old enough to know i can be proud
or to know at the time that i should be working harder
and it is funny because the things i feel the worst about
look the best on paper

i'm sorry zeta
and my thesis
and that dance show i did
i'm sorry brick
and the crucible
and rocker bangs
i'm sorry santa cruz
and savings plan
i'm sorry silverlake and
burning man

i'm working on being better
at what i do
whatever it is that i do

(and what's true. what's really really true. is i am finally getting pretty in the photographs i used to hate. maybe i just need more time with it all. )

that is today

even at 300 miles
i feel like the fire
is burning
right here
just at the edge where i can almost see it in these mountains too

and he is there
where i can't be

while the burning mountains are making eerie magic of the sunset

and if i feel this way

like my heart is a millimeter from bursting through my chest
like i put lead weights in my overcoat pockets and wear it as it pulls my shoulders down

then what must it be like to walk
as i read she walked
through the ruins of her home
or stand and watch
as i hear they do these nights
the fire make a light show for all to see

but i almost think it would be easier to be there
to be dealing with all this there
rather from here
where i am so far away

the cat toy at the party is a bear in a fire fighter hat
and my breath speeds up
my eyes go blank

someone says big sur
and i want to scream

that is today