California

Somewhere-

We met amidst corrosive acid rain

& You wrapped me all up in your tangled sleeves,

Just to ease the percussion of my rotten yellowed teeth,

& As we spoke solemnly with the lonely polluted sea

You told me all about- almost everything.



Of Golden Californian Territory:

Barren Farmland & Depleted Streams.

Arid Summers & Uprooted Redwood Trees.

Illegal Immigrants & Poverty.



& Everything you still miss about being a little kid.

What we wouldn't give just to be young again.



Sprawled out upon that splintered wooden picnic bench,

Where we laid our carefree adolescent graffitti

& Agreed everything was finally changing,

We first began to fully understand ourselves.

Or, at least, we thought we did.



& At that exact moment-

Yeah, perhaps we had.



But Now,

I don't really know who I am.



In the Old Days of Broken Sunsets & Road Trips:

Half-haunted Houses & Romantic Cemetaries.

Fast-food Restaurants & Scratched CDs.

Out-dated Diary Entries & Awkward Vulnerability.

That quaint sort of newness to everything.



I wonder if that really was love then?

I wonder if that really was love then?



From a decayed old abandoned auditorium stage,

Where we sat breathless shrouded in timeless shadow,

& To a deafened audience of restless ghosts:

We spake our rehearsable dialogue in unison-

To accompany some absent piano.



& I thought I really got to know you.



& Yeah-

We thought we really knew ourselves.

We actually thought that we were convincing.



But Now,

I don't know who I am.

Or who I used to be.



Somewhere-

We exchanged coy laughter through candle light.

5 AM- Before the silenced abrupt sunrise

Crept through the crooked plastic blinds

& Clung to the misted mildewed tiles.

We could never really remember all that was said.

But all of our words would whisper through the open vents.

& We always spoke with such unneccessary confidence-

Back Then.



Like we thought we knew everything.



& We did.

We knew everything.



Everything.



But now,

I don't know nothing.