At the Jumping Bean

I wondered if some souls of Chicago's youth return to the tri-color chairs of cafecito jumping bean.

Even if you didn't mean to end up here, there is no in-between.

Heaven is the Su Nueva laundromat, and hell is the dilapidated tunnel under train tracks.

If our youth return here, they have slipped through the cracks.

As always, I sink into the permanence of the coffee sip. But know I am just the opposite.

I think about how they might do it to find peace.

Even without them, there is still that empty apartment to lease.

My own aura is pushed through rivers of ground black beans and ventra cards.

Wind gusts of metallic rails and bus stops with grass patches of glass shards.

Passing cars have their own bodies and systems of veins filled with cold blood.

When I have seen people of the community gone to tragedy, I can hear them return to the fences or alleyways.

Distorted reflections in mudded rainwater engulf me on Tuesdays.

I see myself in thousands of possibilities as a teenager, wondering how I would've gone too.

Now I still see parents aging at 30, more flower purchases, and girls performing la Danza at festivals.

They are hoping that the souls won't be scared to come again.

The feathers and the drum beats are remnants of Mexico in a melting pot of confusion and anger.

The tire shop of someone's father never closes to grieve, and neither do the eyes on the murals who watch the park swings reach the clouds.

News channels are static, and altars get taken down eventually.

My place in this world is still at the cafe.

But, I wonder if they come back to think just like I do.