The nighttime flock of moths watches us from the street lights; pooled in false, extreme shadows cast upon this concrete slab that is our hometown. The stars you can't see from this parking lot. The streets are lined with poor mans neon; light bulbs behind plastic signs some shattered to show pure white. The cops drive in circles up and down this slice of road; keeping an eye on locked up playgrounds. The kids, here, they hide in the woods, until the floodlights come. When you try to talk, the town is silent save the swoosh of cars on the highway just to the left of here. There is no center save a shopping mall, where disruptions are dealt with, quickly. We spent our days and nights in parking lots, in diners waiting to see who else was drunk or desperate, or surrendered plans that night and ended up here, again, again, again. When I would walk; I'd see the run over birds by the bridge, mashed into concrete like they had no buisiness flying. Our place here was yellow lights, wood panels and sometimes poetry readings, so rarely the poetry, and mostly horrendous; the clerks eyeing you when you say "fuck" but for none of the right reasons; the townsfolk out for some culture, tonight. And the rest of them got drunk, riding motorcycles across the streets, and maybe for a few minutes you felt like you were flying but I don't believe it could last long enough to cover the rest of your life. I was elsewhere, in the parking lot, with music, watching a shrub shake its leaves before the clouds let loose and barraged us with its stored up grays. But the storms pass, and the people outside are all the same. The old teachers would see me, asking how I was doing, surprised I was still here. I hated going to where they read thier poems in horrible, high school english teacher voices with thier eyes on me, the alumni. What is the point of youth in this town, but to serve as the work pool for shopping malls, school plays and those in attendance? When they painted anarchy symbols on the side of the school the police had to look it up. No joke. Everything is aligned in perfect squares now every road takes you to the shopping mall the sunrise signals traffic lights rows and rows of cars on thier way out and back, out and back, coming in to save thier five percent. I'll say goodbye to the Chinese Immigrant who stays open till two AM, and then I will make my way out, I promise you I will get out of here, away from rows of 24 hour gas stations and drug stores swallowing the nighttime sky. From here to Olympia is 3,151 miles: 53 hours of driving away ought to change the world enough before I get there. -e. _______________________________________________ Five7Five mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/five7five
