chaos

portland 2011

collage

The last town before a mountain, like the last chord of a song. Once struck, we wonder what is next. It’s the town that he grew up in; a young heart breaker that smoked weed in water bottles after school behind target, burned all types of trash in the gutter, skateboarded through the suburban castle, and fell asleep with the windows open because it never was cold. Wal-mart, McDonalds, every big chain place packed into the complexes. But among all those carbon copy buildings was a sun that blared down hot and strong, as though the lady California took her spot as the alluring gold we all found weaving in and out of our hair. A desert in between ocean and mountain, the twisted colors of her landscape blooming off of all the cement walls and getting stuck to the bottom of your shoes. The unruliness of her nature shines through in the way the sun watches obsessively for days, never growing weary. The unruliness is in the height of the trees and in the hearts of the people. You can smell the familiar scent of sage lit on the fire by the power of the heat, drowning in the heart of the state that never stops shining.

Joshua Tree 2016

-Charles Bukowski