California rain
Wash me clean of these memories
I was once a girl, lost inside a sad teenage dream
Back when I lived among the redwood trees

I lost my innocence to him
Not with love, but with pain and petty
my first wasn’t at all gentle
A door closed before I was ready

He held me close, then soon clenched his fist
walking the line caused it all to contort and twist
My Bruises were hidden, silent hotel room cries
Nobody knew what was really beneath my brown eyes

He said, “You’re no goddess to me,”
and threw me to the floor
When I ripped his painting apart
My small, fierce payback
For all the abuse in my heart.
He left me alone on New Year’s Eve
No kiss, no warmth, no reprieve.
Love shouldn’t feel like that.
But it did to me.

it wasn't just him that brought me pain
his family was dark, and played his same kind of game
They drowned me deep in smoky haze one night
Then laughed and shamed me in the morning light
I felt the shame, a heavy weight,
Knowing then I was in the wrong place
A battered soul wandering through a haunted space
Searching for light but I couldn't find one trace

Then came the time he stole from me
That ring of turquoise and he did it silently
The one thing I brought there, that held my truth
Now vanished, like my fading youth.
I’ve never seen it since that day,
Just like the part of me he broke away.
But I remember how it used to shine
Bright like the hope I thought was mine.
It’s probably tarnished now, deep in a river,
Lost forever.
And even now,
I feel that cold night shiver.

I was eighteen and still believed
That people meant what they said,
That bodies were safe in someone else's hands
I had not even an inkling that Love could just be pretend

I remember California grapes,
The soil in my hands, the open land.
The parts of the world that didn’t ask
Too much of me, but there was much I didn't understand
Back when I still had wings.

I can hear The rustle of the branches
The sound of West Coast dusk
Back then I didn't know how fast
A girl can turn to dust.

I had guts to go.
I didn’t know to guard my light.
Or that he wasn’t love
Just harm disguised as something right.

He was the first.
And it shouldn’t have been that way.
But it was.
Love shouldn’t hurt.
But it did.
Those days.

Before I left, his mother said,
“Promise me you’ll live this life strong.”
I said the words, I heard the hollow sound of my weak voice
But even then, I knew somehow
That promise was really meant for me

She'll never know I had the heart of a poet,
That every word she spoke, I’d never forget it.
The joke was on her, though she expected I’d fall
I held those words close, I remember them all.

The promise wasn’t for her,
She was too cold like Northern California mountain air.
That vow was meant for the gypsy that remains
And she can still taste and feel that California rain.

the Redwoods still stand
And so does she