December 12 around 10:30am.
I left an apartment complex
and stepped into a clear LA light
and another Sunday mornin’ comin’ down.

Heading toward my car
parked at Waterloo and Kent,
I paused for an old queen in front of me
to stop and cough into his mask.

I had been an attendee at an all-night four-way drug orgy.
My throat was dry and my pants were a mess.
I thought Los Angeles looked like it always had
with sun bleached nowhere streets, and
anywhere buildings the colors of burned stucco
with orange trees.

And for a moment I felt the way I did when I was younger,
glad to be lost in an endless maze of randomness
that was my city no one yet cared to figure out
of palm fronds and overpasses,
suburbs, Mexicans, and doughnut shops.

But then I drove down Bellevue and noticed
college students in Old Navy Lululemon styles walking with coffees.
I parked in my drive as settlers on cell phones
strolled by my house
walking inside I could still hear their chatter.

Looked out my window this morning in winter
and with a wasted mind poetically fried
I decided a feeling like this
must no matter be utilized.
Write it all down. Now
before you collapse and sleep.

Save a residue of this life
although it has turnt.
A world gentrified
but with soul afire,
I remember
burnt speed!