i remember this

I remember redwood trees, bumper cars and wolverines
The ocean's Trident submarines
Lemons, limes and tangerines
I remember this

i dreamt last night of the pacific, that someone had harnessed a short stretch of it and brought it to the east river, superimposing it over the promenade at brooklyn heights. they'd chosen a stretch i'd never seen, all white sand dunes and water the color of every tropical dream, but it didn't fit over the skyline. the chrysler building and the empire state peeked out from the top of the scenery; even though i could see around the facade, though, i sat rapt on the sand, staring out onto the water as though my gaze would part the waters and help me understand where i fit between the two.

i knew it wasn't home, but for that moment i wanted it to be. even as it picked me up and threw me backwards into downtown brooklyn, i pretended that this was how it had always been.

I remember this defense
Progress fails pacific sense
All those sweet conspiracies
I remember all these things

i dreamt last night of the american west, of the golden coast where the sky slips into the sea as though it were silk. i saw clearly how pink the hills become at sunset, and how longingly the light of august drips into the river. i dreamt of the wineries and the redwoods and the coffee shop where i spent my adolescence, of everything that marked my non-adult life. when first i left it, i couldn't turn my neck to look back; my resolve and my contempt made me too brittle to let it in. even now, i try to keep up the facade that i don't think about it like an old flame. as though missing my home would mark me as less than hardcore.

i haven't been back to california in two years; i haven't seen my mother in nearly that long. and though i act as though this is okay with me, a little part of me aches to revisit the scene of the crime. in the meantime, though, i dig my heels into the turf out here; i pretend that this is how it has always been.

Low ebb, high tide
The lowest ebb and highest tide
I guess we took us for a ride
I guess it's just a gesture

i dreamt last night of all those things that once caused me to curl my lip, from the weather to the earnestness of the people, but as i sit in this city, far from my family and far from home, i find myself aching for the road i can drive in the dark, for a world where i don't understand the meaning of the world 'cold,' and the sense of purpose i had when i lived there, even if that purpose was simply "get out."

when i moved to new york, i promised myself that i would never go back. i promised that i would never be one of those people who never makes it further than 150 miles away from where they grew up, i promised myself that i would never be homesick for that place, because it was not where i belonged. and maybe it's not. but sometimes, here in the concrete jungle, i grow tired of the ring of the voices on concrete, and i long to hear my own footsteps walking out among the oaks that i once knew so well. i want to remember who i was when i was soft and impatient for everything to begin; while i am quite fond of myself at this moment in my life, i no longer feel like pretending that this is how i've always been.

At the end of the continent
At the edge of the continent
At the end of the continent
At the edge of the continent