for a story im writing.

Where I live

 I live in California. A desert with an ocean view. Where the Joshua trees whisper their secrets to the night. Where the heat can melt you and the waters can freeze you. I live in the city of Angeles.  A huge city with thousands of interesting communities and hidden magical locations. Where freeways are covered in murals and candy colored graffiti. A city of icy glass buildings, and dirty alleys. Where the rich, and the poor live a few streets away from each other. A city of angels but it’s filled with devils. A city where the young and beautiful do as they please. A city that separates yet connects us. It’s a place that can encage you or show you how the rest of the world lives. Where different ethnicities intermix. A city that houses colorful soldiers. Soldiers who think that this city is something worth dying for. They cover their bodies in black ink, with addresses and street names of places they will never truly own. Where kids get famous and sell their souls. Where the dead hear and make music and learn how to live. Where the creative put their dreams on silver screens. Where artist paint the things they see while drugged up and screaming with the desire to show people what they see, and feel. I live in the little town of Artesia. A few blocks away is Little India. A place where you can get spicy curries and rose ice cream. Where store windows are draped with brightly colored saris. Where you can buy rich gold jewelry glittering with the reflection of sparkling eyes peering through the glass. Where the women jingle from arms covered in tinkling bangles. Where you can dance all night in the Portuguese hall. Or watch the bulls fight and fall.

I used to live in Hawaiian Gardens. In a way I still do. It’s a little piece of hell. A square mile with about enough people to fill three cities. Not even enough land to bury the lost soldiers who have perished for or because of it. A city of ghost and old memories. Driving down its streets I see shadows of my past. Of my childhood summers spent at the hall playing with kids who no longer walk these streets, or remember my face. I remember hot days spent swimming at the bean dip where all us kids where roasted chocolate but it didn’t matter, we were monochromatic, our brown skin didn’t stand out. Where I could buy champurrado and tamales from a lady with a shopping cart. Where the tacos are real and tortillas hand made. Where the melody of the Spanish language is uttered more than our dear English. Its a city of old ghost. Its a city whose streets stole my father, and many more. A city of old ghost and old family. Where your last name can destroy you or save you. Where everyone knows each other. It’s a city my family has changed and been changed by.

Before California I live in Las Cruces, New Mexico. A small desert city. Where you can see an angry storm from a miles away. Where everyday there’s a beautiful sunset.  A city where all the shops close at nine. And there’s only one mall. There’s more Sonics than Starbucks, and more Wat-A-Burgers than MacDonalds. The sky is midnight blue and you can see the stars. The tallest building is Welsfargo and its only seven stories high. Where Christmas is unique for the streets are lit by rows of lumineras. The bags looking like they’re about to float into the midnight sky if they weren’t weighed down by their sandy bottoms. It’s a city of crumbling pueblos, and wise New Mexican people.

                I was born in Texas. El Paso, Texas. The driest little desert that tends to flood, with people and thunderstorm rains. A border town with no future and a lost past. Dirty, rundown, overpopulated, no success, its Mexico, just better dressed. Its citizens live off the tomatoes juiced soaked Chico’s Tacos. Its hospitals bore father, my mother, and then me.