2010-07-19

lost in Oakland

I have been lost for years on Bay Area freeways. A sunny Sunday morning finds me drunk and crying in the parking lot of an Oakland liquor store. I listen to the organ and many voices singing hymns in a church with open windows across the street. It all makes me drink myself into the parking curb. The sun on the back of my neck tries to reassure me that I'm not alone but only succeeds in reminding me that I'm alone. I have a letter from someone I used to know and will never know again. I purchase another bottle from the liquor store. I wander into town and look in the windows of the antiques stores closed for Sunday and that may never re-open for Monday. I look in the windows at all the junk and treasures piled up inside and tell myself, I used to have a room like that, now I have a life like that.