Chapter #54,363,818 of Our Story – Our City

Dear journal ("it's not a diary"),

LA has always been there whenever I need her
And to reciprocate the love, I’m starting with the man in the mirror.
I’m looking at myself, just a pixel of her picture.
Alone, it’s just a single dot of insignificance,
But in context of the whole, by fulfilling my role
I am a piece of the Painter’s masterpiece.
But to be this piece I must master inner peace.
To close my gaze to the world around,
I might open my third eye and see the sounds inside to find that voice – my voice
And join the choir of Our voice.

I have always had everything, but never valued anything.
I have everything I need, but nothing I want,
For my wants becomes needs, so my needs are just greed
And I fail to perceive what’s (real)ly there.
I never learned to appreciate my bountiful blessings,
But instead bemoaned it all
Since it did serve my needs.
I never know what happiness means, so I survey the world to squelch this ever-engulfing thirst.
Turning to temporal satisfactions and pleasures in an effort discover my calling, my lover,
I drown myself in the earthly answers, yet still I thirst.
I never identify with myself, but let social circumstances dictate my existence.
I am a product of the world and consumed by it as well,
Only to thrown out when my services were no longer needed.

The world has a strange recycling program that molds me into something new at its convenience
Only to, again, be thrown out when I became an inconvenience.
I only thought of I, yet I am not I since I am what I think the world wants I to be.
Ai yi yi! I serve the world to be a part of it,
but really, this is just the world serving itself.
And I’m the fool who perpetuates it.

I am clearly convoluted, contradictory, and confusing,
But, for just one moment, to be concise,
I am alone.
Alone, I am but one boy searching for his place;
One is the loneliest number.
I try so hard to fit into a world I feel no connection with.
In front of me lays a whole web of networks,
Yet the firewalls I set up keep me from plugging in.
My protective barriers put Norton to shame,
And no matter how long friends and family hack away at this wall,
I am safe to wallow in my own shame.
I quarantine myself to prevent the spread of my virus.
Anyone who gets too close WILL, WITHOUT QUESTION, BE INFECTED
AND NO ONE SHOULD SUFFER MY PAIN.
My loneliness.
I am a cancer who infects the healthy cells when searching for a cure.
Despite constantly being alone, I never look to myself for happiness.
How could anything therapeutic be extracted from a plague?
I am a broken, bleeding heart, destined for solitude.
I have accepted my fate.
I am content with my wretchedness.

Fortunately, I am wrong.
With my walls lowered, I am vulnerable.
It takes just one person to fuse that connection and establish a dialogue.
Through discourse I discover my true feelings and the inner explanations forming my foundation.
Wishing to understand the world, which reciprocates a similar tendency of curiousity,
I must openly oblige its wishes to know about me.
Yet it is impossible to explain oneself without knowing your own identity,
Thus it takes an outsider to help me look in;
It takes another’s life to encourage me to own my own story;
It takes gazing into caring eyes of an open soul
To see your reflection
And that man in the mirror.
Another’s love has unlocked the treasure buried inside,
An area of myself I knew existed, but never tapped into.

I am still content,
But now I prefer the substance of my soul over worldly substances.
No longer is my self-conscience tainted by the world, but I can love myself.
I am still contagious, but now I aspire to bestow my services to anyone willing to open their mind.
I can love another now that I learned to love myself.
No longer am I a product of the world,
But a producer of positive change to the inequities of society
Providing a service to the world by giving a voice to the mute.

One solitary voice, however, cannot carry itself across the globe,
But as we listen to the cries of our neighbors, and tune our own pitch with one another’s songs,
We can join together in a harmonious chorus that can stretch beyond our imagination.
My story may have taken place in the past,
but it is a part of my identity.
It is a part of my present,
And with it I have developed myself into more than just a single, dull, pixel.
I am just one vibrant part of LA’s picture,
Whose diversity and people are microcosms of our global culture.
As one, we can control our own fate and that of all future generations,
So with the burden of our planet resting on our shoulders,
Let’s carry it together.

This story is our story,
My neighbor’s development is our development,
And my foe’s future is our future.
By giving each other a voice, let’s ensure our future serves our interest.

We are the world.

-One