Chapter One (Twenty Days and Twenty Nights)

~On a busy brick street corner with a cage sitting near the edge of a park

My favorite place is on the planet Earth, older than the borders made to segment turf, a place with heart and moving dirt,  where chemicals mix with edibles and suffer the works.  My favorite person lives within a box surrounded by crowds, she’s never alone and never strong enough to cancel them out, she was never told to use her two hands to signal them down, and when I met her smiling on a weekend without… food or water. That’s somebody’s daughter smiling through the thirst, someone has left her here and yet she doesn’t reverse… that simple smile.

I laid down and talked with her for a while, while she craned her head up to look up at the clouds. So I said, “The birds can chirp until you wake and make a song you can relate your morning to and in the day you think of it and recreate the melody and sing it, say ‘the birds have waken me today’ and lay away that feeling til you sleep and see them in your daze.” Again, she smiled.

She reached her hand through the metal bars, I had to move myself because I was sitting far, she touched my hand and thumbed along the scars, and asked me who had hurt me long before we had our talk…

Chapter Two (Opening Up)

~Around 10 p.m., after pulling the cage into the grass

My favorite place has made mistakes as well, I told her what that meant for me in depth, a snake had slid its way along a couple steps, and up the tapestry and through the sheets all on the bed… she asked to see the scars that I had,  none of them from my mom or my dad, or the widows that be calling , instead, they came from the dark in my head..

“Damn, dude.” That’s all that she could say to my tune, I could tell that I had ruined the mood, I grabbed my stuff to leave but she had told me “don’t move,” She had a gift for me sitting between her old tennis shoes… She said “here I made this for you,” and handed me a paper that was scribbled on and folded, took me by the hand and told me that I could hold it, but don’t unfold it til I’m home and out from the coldness.  I took it in, lightly grabbed her smiling face by the chin, through the bars that were thin, through the morning when it’s dim, through the weather and the wind, feeling better than I did, seeing clearer than the glasses that I hid in a bin in my room cause I thought she’d see me better with nothin’ on my face. This girl that’s stuck within my favorite place… now on to change the pace….

Chapter Three (Desert the Box)

~Midday, after having read the note

Crowded and deserted yet, I put it on my life, I bet… Nobody shielded you from the desert sun, or monsoons, or loud cracks from metal guns… I put it on my life, I bet… when your family left you here, you didn’t feel upset, when the nightmares came to you you never woke and wept, I bet you pushed through and told them dreams to jump and jet… Cause that’s the one I knew you as… never frown and never sad, I brought a brick to you and knocked along the box and tried to make you free but to me you started getting mad!…

~One hand on the bar, the other playfully tugging on my hair

“Do you wanna see me in the crowd?” She asked. “You wanna see me get run down!” She laughed. “You wanna treat me like a lady with a crown well I’m down but you gotta love the box I came to you in and treat it as…” She paused… I realized she was never mad, at all. The box was the only thing she had, in all, the world, so I need to ask before, I try to break it open and collapse… “Put your hands on mine,” she said, “It doesn’t have to make sense within your clouded head.. I’ll put my hands on yours and think of freedom and these bars will swing open like revolving doors!”

Chapter Four (A New Life)

~The street is clear for a moment

Chemicals mixed with edibles, tangible love tethered between two human hearts, I placed my shaky hands on the metal bars,  immediately feeling dizzy and seeing shooting stars. “You’ve known me long enough so this shouldn’t be hard..” Her eyes went all white, I kept saying “Hey are you feeling alright?”  I tried to lift my hands but hers were holding mine in place, no way to make a quick escape… but then…

Those gorgeous eyes were staring into mine. Outside of the box, on the opposite side of the bars. She was next to me, freely holding onto my hands and moving them up my arm further than she previously could. She laced her fingers behind my neck and stopped smiling… tears started blocking her vision and I believe this was the first time they’ve ever fallen down her face.  “What’s wrong?” I asked… “Nothing,” She said, “This is the greatest feeling I’ve ever felt.”

The streets remained crowded, my mind remained clouded… my favorite place in all the planet Earth, all along in the heart of this one lonely person, broken free of bars and nights filled with peaceful longing, I brought her home and waited for the birds in the morning.

I don’t want to create an illusion. I’m human just as you, but the feelings I have are unmistakably my own. These kinds of stories are always present in my mind. Sometimes hard to grasp. I’m not talking about an actual person, but a memory of something beautiful that has never really been resolved for me. And as you read it, you’re reading my emotions, the ones I don’t show with my face. It may be lame to some but to me it’s the truth that I can’t bring to spoken word. And that’s why I share it here.