Boys and friends,
family and school.
These are the things
I knew in my hometown.

It never changed.
It was always the same.
When things went well
it was the same.
When things went bad,
they never changed.

I’ve seen the same dull faces
everyday of my life.
But the day I saw his face,
it was like I moved to a whole new town.

He made the simple,
daily, places exciting
because whatever happened,
I couldn’t wait to tell him about it.

But one day
he didn’t care
what I had to say.

He stopped inviting me over
and I knew less and less.
I didn’t know how his day was.
I just wanted to know how his day was.

I used to think
I was so miserable
in my hometown.

I got sick of the
same daily routine.
But when he left,
it was a whole new town again.

This town was always burning.
Burning, burning, burning
then rebuilding.
Rebuilding, rebuilding, rebuilding.

It changed when he left.
It wasn’t the same.

He was a paradise
in this otherwise boring city.
But no vacation can last
and now I’m stuck where it always storms.

I want my sunshine back.
I want my best friend back.
I want him back.

There isn’t a place
in this washed up town
that doesn’t have a memory
of him and I
and the time we spent together.

When he left,
he took so much of me with him
and I want it back.

I want to play my favorite songs
and not cry
because it was the song playing
when he told me about his family.

I want to watch movies
and not think about
how we joked along with the plot
and made it our own.

I want to go out
and not wish he was there with me.
I want to sleep
and not wonder
what it would be like
to have his arms wrapped around me.

When he left,
everything changed.
Nothing was the same.

Maybe family roots are calling, so I'll sing back.
Maybe the "streets is watching" -- so I'll wink back.
A city, teeth-deep in tragedy that still talks back.
Detroit, I think we've got something in common, maybe I'll come back.

In the gut of the city, see spots gutted, yeah I know the feeling.
rough and tough, been through enough but there's still bigger-badders threatening.
They say they'll huff, and then they'll puff, and blow your house down again.
This just got hairy, not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin.

In the aftermath of perfect disasters in a domino series,
all eyes glue on the ruins, scanning for signs of life & death amid debris,
it's prime-time on Tragedy Channel for train wreck week,
strollin' out of the dirt with a smirk...hey D ---look we're on TV.

Wearing hurt like a shirt, Detroit you're my remedy.
That heartbeat, that house drum, that low, growling energy.
Many think this city is dwindling, Detroit lights are dimming lately.
But listen for that low hum, under the pavement, feel the rumble under your Nikes.

An army survivors, are-me's telling stories in different ways.
Listen to my movement, see me be the music, throttle always open, Motor-City made.
Watch feet jittin' and go cross-eyed, 3000 RPMs in one take.
Music-macguyvers throwing backspins into air-flares, on the snow or in the rain.

Maybe family roots are calling, so I'll sing back.
Maybe the "streets is watching" -- so I'll wink back.
A city, teeth-deep in tragedy that still talks back.
In this city I see myself, we're both about to make a come-back.

I am walking
Again
Gently sloping two-lane highway
Graying asphalt with faded yellow lines
Curving
Curving into the
Distance
I feel it, this moving space
Endless promise
Stretching out extending
Air
Snaps cool
Against my face
Against chromium green bristling pines
A stand selling apples
McIntosh apples glowing knifesharp
Reddish-green skins
Apples piled high in heaps
Jumbled against rough wooden boards I buy
Brown paper bag of them
Get one out, rub
It clean on my shirt
Bite thin
Taut skin splits
Peels I taste
Acid pineapple flesh breaks
Tender white
Sky, a light slate grey sky covered
With high stratus clouds
And
I am sixteen
Again
Walking along
Empty road, eating apples
Heart lifted
With independence
By being out
Out
Sheltered
Under these endless
Dark pines and
The spreading
The deepening sky.

Without a sound, lay awake
In a dark, cramped car,
Four thirty in a parking lot,
We hadn't got much sleep so far.

I watched the sky through the window
Turn into dark blue,
Heard someone say
The sun is rising.. So we all did too.

I walked on the sand
Toward lake Michigan.
I saw the waves smooth the edge
And I knew what you meant again.

As I saw them shatter
And I saw them fold,
I took a single step forward
And the water on my feet was cold.

To my left was a castle
Made of feathers and sand,
Where some happy souls had played.
On my sides rested empty hands.

The clouds turned pink,
The sky, a pale blue.
Watched reflections ripple colors
In the morning, thought of only you.

The nature of light
Continued the same,
Churning weightlessly the surface
Of the psychedelic windowpane.

Though the end of the water
Escaped my eyes,
I saw the vanishing point
Where the lake met the new sky.

The current pulled me out
With the strength of a thirst.
It all reminded me of infinite
Potential of the universe.

The turns above stirred
The air with their wings.
My eyes stared backward
At a mind full of memories.

A number of years ago when I was learning to drive
My dad would make me drive down to Ionia Michigan
because it could **** a full hour of driving practice
And because it was some other place to go.

Just recently I had to go back there and pay off a speeding ticket.
There are worse things than paying off a speeding ticket.

This town has gotten tired.
I walk by the city hall and eye the crumbling brick beside the road
and I think they must not be trying very hard to attract any visitors here.
But there I was-
suddenly insulted.

The city lights have gone out decades ago but they never died. They left their posts- abandoned. Now all that remains are the the dim and flickering street lamps that stand on sidewalks and bide their time watching or waiting for the final walls to crumble.

The city has a sleepy aura that one would feel seeing somebody's 70's childhood toy, like a jack in the box or a colorful plastic record player left outside. A lost innocence, and the smell of marijuana seeping from every upstairs window downtown or of a girl once beautiful who now waits alone and used to take off her clothes and reveal her tongue and love the universe as it appeared to love her.

I walk inside another second hand store and see nobody attending the counter. Stiff- funereal clothes and grey dresses. There is one rack of men's clothing, I accidentally take a whiff of the stale dusty air and it suddenly holds me from touching them. I quietly stare at my sobering realization that I am in the cities ashtray. They sell here what they can't burn but probably should, and every ten shirts in a row indicates one more rock in a row at one of the many churches of necessity and I decide to get out.
This place gives me the creeps.