nights I feel your cigarette burn

I began somewhere in the middle of it. There was sunshine streaming through cloud cover. A sky perforated with regret. Familiar spots grown unfamiliar with time. How quickly an afternoon turns into an afterthought turns into two years ago turns somehow again into five minutes ago. There are places that are gone. Places to which I no longer have the key. The things that come to supplant them seem ersatz. But only for a while. Eventually these memories can be relearned. This steadfast loyalty to the history of a glimpse of what might have been is energy that could be better spent on campaign fervor. Vote for John Kerry, please.

I have lived here a while. I can tell. I know my way around. I know how far I am willing to go. I understand the currency. Sometimes I even have the upper hand. If there is a perfume to Los Angeles, I am foul with it tonight.

I taste cigarettes and aftermath and the morning approaching.

My brain is too muddy to make pretty sentences.