Morning comes.

The California sunrise sets on her, Sacramento. It bounces off the sign of the renewed car wash on my street. The rainbow flags across the way dance in the breeze like it’s her loose and proudly vibrant hair hanging out a car window. The walls of cement and brick that hold up restaurants and homes — so strong and forceful. Their height cascade in grandeur. Her arms, they open up to me for embrace.

I hug back, journeying down the street another morning with intent to take in my city again. I hug her and her new scars.

New messages of anger and sadness paint and wound her arms and legs. Tears of glass hanging off her face and puddling on the floor. Her children coming out of the homes her bricks hold up, mending her with brooms and pans as she continues to hold me tighter — hold us tighter.

She still chooses to hold me — hold us.

It’s two images I see and feel all at once. It’s intense darkness amidst the backdrop of dueling sound. It’s the dawn’s renewal of spirit and energy through light that I sometimes still wonder if ever will come…Eureka! I found it.

The battling images continue as she tells me she won’t let go. I feel myself in her arms, loving me harder with each step as I continue down this familiar road. My own eyes begin shattering like the shards of glass hanging from her face and piled at her feet. My heart being cut by my own tears, my blood mixing with the broken glass. I can’t reconcile the two images I see and feel.

Juxtapositions, man…

It’s no matter. Its ok. I am with her and her children, my brothers and sisters — black, white, gay, straight. I find solace remembering I am one of her own. Despite the last few nights loudly marked by our immense pain and sorrow shouted through new wounds that will scar, she continues to hold me. She continues to hold us.

I begin to wipe her tears and heal her wounds.