I miss California, home.
I miss lying in bed on Tuesdays with music
My music is Caucasian middle-class oppression
I know that I'm into it for very different reasons
Not because I can relate to it--though I do--
It gives me power to retreat into my dreams
I have dreams of power and pop
They embarrass me more than you'd think
Because I can't sit still in these secrets, I
Jump I jump and fall and twist my ankle 'round
My head, like I never could do in childhood, like
I was supposed to, never mind my un-American fear
Of heights and noise and sports and flexibility.
In California, I
Ran the mile every Friday, but of course I
Didn't really run it, I walked it, and once I skipped
I was always faster at skipping than running, I won
Every relay race that involved it at birthday parties
When will I run again?
Here there is too much open space, and too many people
Who look and sound and act exactly like me
Can I leave myself behind? What can I do to help?
I have too much privilege but I don't have any ideas
I'm short one dollar at the gas station so I use credit
At electro-fied pumps littering the west Valley, North
Pole has nothing on our freeform seasons all year long.
I twisted my ankle. I went to school.
And I left California behind in cluttered fragments
Of my self-medicated memories.
