How to Get Lost in a Familiar Place

HOW TO GET lost IN A FAMILIAR PLACE POEMS BY CARL CERVANTES

For those who are lost and those who want to be.

-C.C.

wonder embraces the city’s narrow alleys. dilapidated buildings are tied together by thick black wires. * night has fallen the twinkling lights of the building windows have replaced the stars.

life emerges from the cracks of the city’s dead concrete.

I breathe it in the rotten stench carries me intoxicated, through the soot that protects the city from the prying eyes of heaven. nobody escapes its grip.

there is no way out only death grants the weary soul its well-deserved rest

the rush of the dense crowd of the city has left a collective memory a daily routine in human transit lines on roads often taken

walking blindly, we follow the half-asleep crowd like ants, blind: walking without thinking drifting, daydreaming. the surroundings fall into a distant blur

every commute is summarized into a blink during our daily trance. every walk is merely a step that has forgotten every other step. the illusion of continuity: we are waist-deep in the cosmic river that ends with a drain into the void.

stop

walking.

look around. notice the milky water of time. suddenly, the familiar has become strange. silent structures are being constantly built around you. everyone else moves like they’re floating, sleepwalkers, dreaming. you are lost but have you ever left?

there are only two things that a city can do: it can watch it can wait its eyes are your eyes its patience depends on you.

we are wanderers we are the artists, poets, the lost boys who quietly explore the secret spaces of the city. we are where you are.

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