it's 5:30 pm and my sanctuary is an alleyway

it's 5:30 pm and my sanctuary is an alleyway
behind the building where i work.
there are trees, five feet away from each other,
singly making their residence on
archipelagic islands of soil bordered by concrete and
separated by a sea of pavement
littered with crushed dead leaves, cigarette butts
and empty liquor bottles.
they are not so much trees but indicators of
where to parallel park.

on the other side of a fence that looks like it's pretending to be a wall,
there are more trees: more colorful, bigger, healthier,
they are a gang bunched together while
mine are separated and isolated by gray rubble
and i can't help
but feel protective and defensive (so much so)
that when a bird pirouettes towards us and
nests with us (as opposed to them) there is a
sense of pride and i say to myself
"there's nothing wrong with us, and where
we are and who we are and why we are
why we are." we share the same sky,

and for christ's sake,

when i look up there is a crescent moon
patiently waiting for the sun to make its exit.
i close one eye and outstretch my right arm upwards
hoping i can grab a hold of a cloud gingerly coiffed
against a blue canvas, wondering if i can grip the sky
and gently split it open like lips &
i will hear something like "FFFFFT"
and hopefully i can see dark matter or
clusters of dense stars that form in the shape
of the fibonacci sequence. hopefully i can
find the sky's very own third eye watching me.

when i fail to do so, i go back inside and
when i go back inside i felt a sense of pride
being in on a secret with the alleyway,
as if we were the only mexicans
in a crowded elevator speaking spanish to each other.


i sat down and this was when i was excited to hear from you.
when you asked me how i was doing i said "fine" but
what i really meant to say was "i wish i can show you
something that i felt today" -- but don't get me wrong
because i really was fine, my ears burning biblically
at the idea of the trees finding each other's roots
and holding onto each other tight in the earth's crust.
and when you said "i'm glad", my foundation was sturdy yet
floating, like the atmosphere (for a second) thought it was water.