Standing in a sea of faces. Faces I do not know, faces painted with distraction, faces I do not love, faces I cannot love. All I can think of is to chug the heavy bottle in my hand. My eyes bounce from brow to brow, lip to lip, looking for an acknowledging glance- someone who will look back and know what I know. But alas, the music hops louder and the crowd dances itself into frenzied oblivion. That kind of loneliness is more than I can bare. Being lost in a crowd that is lost within itself in the middle of the city by the bay. Cold and restless, homeless and alone.
As I walked back to board the bus or walk the 35 blocks back to my urine stained block, I stared hard at my shoes avoiding eye contact, already disappointed and ashamed to be a part of this fabulous nothing. I just wanted to run. I wanted to run across the bridge, over the mountains, across the plains, through the snow until my lungs bled. I wanted to feel that great escape burn in my muscles, in my eyes and let it chap my skin. My skin had grown too soft and tan from the warm sun and clean cotton clothes I’d been wearing. It was time to taste the dirt and thirst, in the most real way. Not the way that you thirst when you realize someone just drank your last beer and it is after 2am. That isn’t thirst. That is just more distraction.
I loved this place. I thought I’d found home. Home for now at least, but not home, real home.
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