youth and weekend wars

in the last couple months i take so many trains and busses i forget where im going and which ones will get me to whatever place im calling home at that exact moment. home has withdrawn, become an internal thing. i have found a home inside myself, inside you, inside all of you and so, in fact, home, as a physical place, becomes irrelevant.
he tells me i mind as well be 17 and i couldnt feel closer to this right now. heading to calistoga for a weekend that will inevitably bring up that 17 spirit, that girl i was there, that place can make me feel so different, so alive and stagnant at once, but everythings different now, i have him and more importantly, i have myself. i am not that girl, im alive, completely, and from the tracks ive traipsed around this city, very much moving, not stagnant, not even a little bit.
the mission is alive today, pregnant bellys bursting out of tube tops and people hollering at each other on every street corner, resting languidly on fire hydrants, a picture of inner city, this is an inner city, did you know that? and all the sudden neighborhoods become real and tenants become neighbors and its a different city when its hot. when the paint on the buildings is slick and shiny, oily almost, like foreheads and lips, and so i try to shake everything else off thats weighing me down, i let everyones mood calm me, this hectic boil, this furious fight, we all just feel like we might explode.
on saturday we go to a party in the hills of el sobrante and john is taking us there so my stomach is a little nervous, like right before a big night of partying, that salivating, that expectant wonder, that nauseaous nervousness, like just about anything could happen. we park on the edge of some street, oak hill road, or wildcat canyon, in the country even the street names reflect themselves, they are dark and i have sharp eyes, you can read that?, adjusting to midnight concrete roads into forest and one million stars. we pass people walking in the heat and i feel 17, walking up kortum canyon or sharp road to parties at kierens house where everyone was older, shifting from foot to foot, measuring alcohol by how many words tumbled out anxiously in hesitant corners. its hot enough to just be in my dress and we walk onto the deck which is right pushed up, tucked into thick trees. a light projector shoving thousands of tiny green lights into the night, coating the hillside and night sky with tiny green dots, like fireflies, like gems, like magic. it is incredible and we smoke weed and listen to reggae and meet nice new people and have nice easy conversation. hippy mamas dance with sleeping babies and moondog rolls joints and kisses his men friends on the mouth and when the little kids get too tired they all sleep together in a room at the back of the house, safe and warm. i cant stop looking at his hands, the side of his face, the shape of his ear. he is like brand new to me. unexplored and i want to watch him, distantly, because doesnt everyone fall in love with someone just a little bit more from afar? could that even be possible? more in love? b walks with a cane and john is actually tired, we sit on a ledge built separate from the deck and an older man takes photos, whats he staring at? and we look behind us, the lens zooming in at our easiness with the night, behind us is nothing and everything. we are literally on the edge of it all. at least, for that moment, it feels that way, tiny green dots splintering and spotting our foreheads, dotting whites of our eyes.
im still learning, i realize, i dont actually have anything figured out. i think thats when everything will slip slide away from you, when you think there is some great thing to figure out. we need to stretch and challenge ourselves, our minds, i never want to feel that way i felt again, and i can say that, knowing that i will, that i will be unbendable, i will be scared again. i will be afraid of losing it all. but when we realize we dont have all that we need, not just yet, it seems theres nothing to fear. im still guessing and taking chances, im still messing up and saying things that i shouldnt and always, always, feeling things that are bigger than me, making it hard to hold them in your hands, in your hands, but i know that now. i give myself big points for trying.