Things Get Worse Every Day

They say it like a warning.
I say it like a love poem.

My Dear Los Angeles,

I held your hand
while you turned to hot ash
in between my fingers
stood on my roof
watching the mountain
roll white fire
like it had finally
had enough.

I know the feeling.

To the left of those hills
a stack of houses,
palm trees in between like punctuation,
like the city is trying
to say something
it hasn't finished yet.

I try to admire at the hills every day.
Gratitude practice.
Anger management.
Same thing, some mornings.

Some days I walk the neighborhood
to let it slough off
whatever the world deposited
while I was sleeping and then
jasmine.
Just jasmine.
Ambushing me mid-fury
like it has no idea
what's happening
in the news.

Seventy degrees.
A breeze you could not have curated
on your best day.
C'mon now.

My life caught fire first —
the metaphorical kind,
the kind that clears the brush
so something true can grow.
And then there it was,
actual fire,
as if I willed it to be,
as if the city read my journal
and said
same.

Things get worse every day.
And every day
the jasmine doesn't care.
The butterflies don’t mind.
The hummingbirds flit between flowers just the same.
And every day
I walk back home
a little lighter
not quite sure what it was
that I left behind

which is what it means
to love a place.
It doesn’t ask,
it puts on a show.
The jasmine never misses its mark.
The butterflies know their entrance.
The hummingbirds are right on cue.
The hills were here long before you
and will be waiting
for the right wind
soon after you leave.